


smile to tempt a lover

by wildcard_47



Category: Mad Men
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, M/M, Multi, OT3, Polyamory, The Devil's Threeway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-25 23:17:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9851273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildcard_47/pseuds/wildcard_47
Summary: Summer, 1974. One drunken suggestion turns into a permanent arrangement. Joan/Roger/Lane AU.





	1. Chapter 1

**MAY**

 

The fourth time he emerged from his room, Kevin gripped a squat beige transistor in one hand as he raced over to his already-bulging knapsack, which lay open on the foyer floor.

“I forgot my radio! I have to pack my radio!”

“I thought you couldn’t bring those to camp?” Lane frowned down at the extensive two-sided list he was holding, and then cast a puzzled look at Joan, who had her arms crossed over her chest as she watched the boy attempt to shove this last item into his bag. “Or was that the slingshot?”

“No, it was the radio,” Joan let out a heavy sigh, like she had decided to wash her hands of this recklessness. “If your counselor takes that away, I’m not getting you a new one.”

“They definitely won’t find it, Mom. I promise!”

Lane hid a grin at the enthusiasm on the boy’s face. Kevin was so thrilled about having an entire summer away from home. Under his dirty ballcap, his fine blonde hair was shaggy and uncombed, and he was also missing one conspicuous front tooth. The red striped t-shirt and too-large trousers Joan had taken such care to iron last night had already got rumpled in anticipation of the first day. It was rather adorable.

“All right,” Joan uncrossed her arms and made a circular motion with one hand—meaning Kevin needed to get on with it. “Zip that up. Lane’s going to help you take your things to the car.”

“Okay! I’m doing it!” Kevin hefted up his suitcase by the handle using two hands, balancing the side of it against his hip as he ambled outside. Lane picked up Kevin’s knapsack with one hand – it truly was heavy, what on earth had the lad packed? – and had just put the lot into the boot, when the sound of a shiny blue Cadillac pulling up to the front curb caught his attention.

Well, there was Roger.

“Uncle Roger! Uncle Roger!”

Kevin screeched in glee, and tore across the lawn to greet his uncle as the man himself got out of the driver’s seat, wearing a linen suit without the tie, paired with a lightweight hat and sunglasses.

“Hey, kiddo! Jeez, I think you grew a whole foot since last month.” Roger hugged the boy, and then allowed Kevin to grab his hand and lead him up the driveway. They ambled toward Joan’s car with matching grins on their faces.

When he got within hearing range, Roger tipped his hat to Lane.

“How you doing, English?”

Lane suppressed an eyeroll. “Lo, Uncle Sam.”

Kevin snorted. “ _Lane._ His name’s not Sam, it’s Roger!”

“Is it?” Lane pretended to be very confused. “I’ve got it all wrong, then.”

“Are you driving to camp with us?” Kevin demanded of Roger. “Did you already eat lunch? Because Mom said we’re not stopping for lunch.”

“Double yes. The boss filled me in,” Roger smirked at Lane. “I just work here.”

“Hello,” Joan called from the stoop, as she produced her house keys and locked the front door. Lane couldn’t help admiring her figure in her floral blouse and those slim cigarette trousers. Sometimes even he couldn’t believe his own luck.

“Hi, Joanie.” Roger gave her a fond look as she walked up and gave him a quick hug. “We shipping this monster to Timbuktu yet?”

“I’m not going to Timbuktu!” Kevin protested from behind, looking outraged.

“Oh, yeah, you are.” Roger clapped him on the shoulder as if to say the lad should buck up. “You’ll be fine. It’s mostly sharks and pirates.”

“What? I’m not seeing sharks! I’m going to Camp Mohawk!”

“Lake sharks. Look for ‘em; they’re real.”

Lane ignored both of them, and turned to Joan. “Darling, did you switch off the lights in the garage?”

“Yes.”

“And the hallway?”

“Yes.”

“What about—”

“And the kitchen.” Joan leaned in and kissed his cheek. “Let’s go.”

Lane made a pleased noise as she pulled away, and tried not to meet Roger’s mischievous gaze. That was more affection than she usually showed him in front of other people, but he didn’t really mind.

Kevin was windmilling his arms as he walked in circles, entertaining himself with a little song he’d made up based on the camp history. Or maybe it was the official one? “ _Well, the Mohawks were Indians, brave and true, they fought in the hills till the set’lers were blue…”_

“I call shotgun,” Roger interrupted, and hustled toward the passenger door as Kevin raced to catch up. Once he’d instigated a squabble over the door handle with the little boy, Roger started giggling. Kevin was clearly annoyed.

“No way, I have to get the front! Mom! Lane! It’s not fair!”

“Fair schmair. I called it first, kiddo.”

“Oh, this is going to be a long ride,” Lane grumbled under his breath as he watched their game unfold. The man was older than Lewis, for god’s sake.

“It’ll be over soon.” Joan murmured back, and raised her voice so it was audible to Kevin and Roger. “I’m sitting up front. You and Roger can share the backseat.”

“Aw, nuts.”

Roger winked at them as he spoke, and immediately opened the back door, while Kevin mimicked his uncle’s dry exclamation without a hint of irony as he launched his little body into the car and across the seat.

“Yeah! Nuts!”

Lane suppressed another sigh as he got into the driver’s side and inserted the key into the ignition.

Only a few hours.

 

**

 

After they got home from dropping Kevin off at camp, Roger stayed for a glass of water, and then for a couple of whiskeys, and then, finally, for dinner. By then, Lane was annoyed but was handling it well. Joan just kept everyone focused on food and conversation—well, as much as she could, considering the circumstances.

“Unless you want Kevin’s leftovers, all we have is salad.” She set a large wooden bowl in the middle of the table, next to the full basket of bread, which Roger was currently hogging. “We usually grocery shop on Saturdays.”

“Ah, this is fine, Joanie, thanks. I’ll fill up on bread.”

“Okay.”

She didn’t point out that he’d already had three rolls.

When Lane went to fetch his pipe from the study, Joan took the opportunity to be more direct.

“Have you heard from Ellery lately?”

“Writes every now and then. I try to call, too. But you know kids. He’s probably kicking trees and wrestling dogs in that big backyard of his.”

“I’m sure you’ll get a letter once something exciting happens.”

After Mona had died, Ellery went to live with Brooks and his new wife, and as far as she could tell, his parents weren’t communicative with Roger at all. Which obviously affected him. And he and Mona had been such close friends, in the end, especially after Margaret had run away. She honestly wasn’t sure how well he’d been coping; if he had anybody to talk to now that she was gone. He certainly didn’t talk to Jane, or Marie, or any of the other ex-wives.

Roger shrugged. “Ah, I don’t know. Probably forgotten what grandpa looks like by now.”

His face was so crestfallen; a rush of sympathy coursed through Joan’s chest. “You know that’s not true. He misses you.”

“Well, I miss seeing everybody. El. Marie. You.” He walked a little closer; Joan could sense trouble even before he touched her; his hand landed on her right hip and caressed it—softly, lovingly—as if it had been only a couple of days since the last time they made love, and not over a decade. “Gets kind of lonely.”

“Stop.” Joan put a hand between them; her palm barely touched the center of his chest. She kept her eyes fixed on her glossy red nails, only for a second, just long enough to take a breath and meet his searching gaze with raised eyebrows and a thin-set mouth—a warning. “You can’t do that.”

“I know, honey, but I just—”

“You heard her,” came a quiet voice from the doorway, all steel. “Don’t.”

Roger stepped away immediately.

Joan pulled her hand back, fought the urge to knot her fingers together, and met Lane’s thunderous expression with a pleading look. He had two spots of pink in his cheeks; she was afraid he might actually yell. _Don’t be upset. It’s not what it looks like._ “Sorry. Roger’s had too much to drink—”

“I can see that.”

“—and he’s going home.”

One look at Roger told Joan he was panicking. “Okay, okay. Shit. Lane, this is not what it—”

“I saw you touch her!”

Joan kept her voice low and calm. “Roger, lying is not going to help. Okay? Let’s just get you in your car—”

“Joanie. Joanie. Don’t kick me out, please.”

“You’ve done enough,” Joan reiterated. “You’re drunk. Go sleep it off.”

“Honey, I’m sorry.” Roger looked disappoined. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I just thought—it’s been so long since I’ve had anybody to—”

“Oh, for god’s sake!”

“What is your problem?” Joan snarled, gesturing toward Lane with one outstretched hand. “Do you honestly not see how rude you’re being?”

Roger stopped talking.

“Shit. You’re right.” He turned to Lane, and cleared his throat. “Listen. I’m not trying to cause a big dust up. I want you both to know this is all above board.”

“What the hell does that even mean?” Joan demanded.

“Well—look, if you said yes, I’d sleep with Lane, too. Obviously.”

Her mouth actually fell open for a second before she wrenched it shut. “Excuse me?”

Next to her, Lane seemed flabbergasted; his eyes bulged out comically behind his glasses. _“I beg your pardon?”_

“Yeah.” Roger glanced back and forth between them, like they were both clueless. “So nobody’s left out, but we could still, you know. Have some fun.”

“For Christ’s sake!” Lane sputtered out a hysterical noise that bordered on a laugh, although he looked furious. “Why would that—how in god’s name would that _possibly_ _help?_ ”

“Come on. You really wouldn’t try it?”

Joan arched an imperious eyebrow as she tossed the question back to Roger. “Would you?”

Both men turned to gawk at her. Like she was the crazy person here. She wasn’t the one propositioning a ménage â trois out of the blue. How long had Roger wanted to do this? Had he thought about it for a long time, or was he just shooting from the hip like he’d done for so many years? Was it because he was blue, or starved for affection, or because he just wanted a roll in the hay with someone—well, with _people_ who wouldn’t hurt him?

“I can’t tell if he’s bluffing,” she said to Lane, who pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand in response.

“Dear god. I—assure you—”

“What, you really think I’d chicken out?”

Joan folded her arms across her chest. “I didn’t say that.”

“You’re saying something.” The frown on Roger’s face had smoothed out into something like a smirk. “Lane, for what it’s worth, you wouldn’t be disappointed. I’ve got a real big—”

“That’s enough!”

“—attention span. Let me tell ya, the guys I’ve been with have never—”

“Enough!” Lane repeated, louder this time. “For god’s sake, go home!”

Roger actually seemed confused; his deep frown was almost laughable. Joan would have laughed if she could, but she felt strangely nervous.

“Lane’s right,” she said helplessly. “Let’s talk about this once you’re sober.”

Roger saluted, and seemed to cheer up.

Lane shot her an outraged look.

 

**

 

An hour later, she and Lane were in the middle of a gigantic fight.

“Well, you’re obviously unhappy!”

He was pacing—babbling—frantic.

Joan recognized the signs of a possible anxious spell, and just tried to stay calm as she answered his questions. “I’m not. I promise.”

“Is it—am I—not enough?”

The catch in his voice made her wince, and shake her head, emphatic. “Sweetheart. Of course you are.”

“But you’re clearly—why let him go on and on about it, then? Why call his bluff? What would possibly compel you to—to—?”

“I don’t know.” She pressed her lips together, tried to phrase this in a way that would make sense to him. “He made a flippant suggestion. I was just curious.”

“About what? I mean, you’ve already—”

Lane waved a vague hand through the air with an unhappy noise.

Joan considered her words very carefully. “Well. There are things I like doing, and things I’ve only thought about. _This_ just happens to be a scenario I’ve thought about. Three people.”

“Like a—some type of—fantasy?”

She was relieved that he’d said it out loud. “Yes.”

“Oh.”

He’d turned very red again; the fierce blush had crept down below his collar and up to the tips of his ears.

“I was very adventurous when I first moved to New York,” she continued, “but a threesome was one thing I never did.”

“And—you’re saying you’d want to—have both of us at once.”

“So you’ve never thought about me with another woman?”

Lane’s eyes got a little wide behind his glasses, but he quickly cleared his throat, pretended not to know what she was talking about.

“That’s different,” he said finally, voice gruff. “I don’t have to worry about you swanning off with some—pretty lady.”

Based on the way one corner of his mouth twitched up after he said this, he was trying to lighten the mood.

Joan didn’t laugh. “I don’t want to leave you. Especially not for Roger.”

Lane made a face that said he wasn’t quite convinced.

“First of all, he and I would murder each other,” Joan leveled him with a knowing look. “Second...”

“Second,” Lane huffed, not meeting her eyes.

She got to her feet, took a step toward him with every successive word. “ _Second_ , I love you too much to go anywhere. So you’re stuck with me.”

His mouth twitched up, but he pretended not to notice how close she was standing. Joan took the opportunity to slide her arms around his neck, invade his personal space.

“Get away with you,” he mumbled as she leaned in a little closer, but this was more good-natured, and so Joan wsn’t worried.

“I’m sorry it upset you,” she said, and dropped a quick kiss onto his mouth. “Forget it, if you want. It was just an idea.”

 

**

 

As he stormed into McCann Erickson, Lane kept remembering Roger’s hand on Joan’s hip, the way he’d caressed her, how expectant he’d looked as he leaned in, and it made him see red. _All of us together._

What the bloody hell was the man thinking?

Caroline’s desk was empty; Lane took the opportunity to blow right past it and throw open the door to Roger’s office. Luckily, the man himself sat behind the desk, a stack of books in front of him and a sweaty rocks glass at his left hand.

“Hey.” Roger changed his blithe tune the second he got a good look at Lane’s face. “Whoa. I’m assuming you’re still not over—”

“Stop talking,” Lane slammed the door behind him and strode toward Roger’s desk. “You tried to seduce Joan. A desperate, degraded attempt to—to—ingratiate yourself with someone who isn’t free to accept your attention. It was loathesome. It was disgusting. It was—”

“Gee, you really know how to compliment a guy.”

“I don’t know why you made such an indecent suggestion, and I don’t care. The only reason—“ he took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a second “—in very rare circumstances, one might be compelled to make—certain sacrifices—for their—for people they care for. In order to—to ensure their—complete fulfillment.”

Joan had been very honest about the situation, which Lane appreciated. But even as she told him that it was not something she wanted—that it was only a passing fancy—he saw the way her mouth quirked down as they were getting ready for bed. He remembered the small furrow that had formed between her brows as she spoke about Roger, and he knew that look. It meant she was worried. It meant she was seriously considering it.

Lane could grant her a night like this if it meant he would not lose her.

“Holy shit.” Roger was grinning. “You want to go to bed with me.”

“Strictly speaking, I am _inviting_ you to be present there, solely for her benefit. Nothing more.”

“Sure. Fine.” Roger was practically twinkling. “I’m the present.”

“You will be punctual. You will be sober, and you will not deviate from a pre-approved course of action that—”

“All right, time out.” Roger held up two hands, fixed him with a glare. “Look. You want to do this right, I’ll have to do more for her than hold my nose and dip a toe into the water. Know what I’m saying?”

Lane made an unhappy noise.

“Hey, you can make all the faces you want, but I’m serious. There’s a lot of details here. Who knows? You and I might even have to—”

“I’m not an idiot! I know what this entails!”

“Yeah,” Roger said slowly. “Okay.”

They got quiet again.

“So, you gonna buy me dinner first, or what?”

Lane let out a scoff. What a stupid thing to want! “You’ve got to be joking.”

“Come on. If I’m the special guest star in this rodeo, I should at least get a steak and a scotch out of it.”

“Well, fine. Whatever. We’ll—perhaps we can eat at home, or something.”

“Home-cooked meal.” Roger was grinning. “Not bad.”

Lane took another breath, ran a hand over the back of his neck. “Erm. Before the evening in question—I would like to—there are certain—intimate details you’ll likely need to—”

“You’re nervous,” Roger commented in a low voice.

A cloud of unhappiness darkened Lane’s face, but he shook his head no.

“Hey, if you don’t want to do this, say the word.” Roger gave a shrug, extended his hand as if they were brokering something as commonplace as a real estate deal. “I won’t be offended.”

Lane frowned at Roger over the top of his glasses. This was a peace offering he hadn’t expected.

“No.” After another second, he reached out and clasped Roger’s hand in a firm shake. “We have a deal.”

 

**

 

“So.” Alone with Joanie in her living room, Roger picked up a magazine and leafed through it for about eight seconds before slouching down onto the other end of the sofa. “What does Lane even like in bed? Besides having sex, I mean.”

“I almost want you to be surprised,” Joan said wryly. She was leaning against the crook of the sofa with a pillow behind her back.

“Come on, Red, I’m going into this with a serious blind spot. The man is holding out on me.”

They were supposed to have some talk about what Lane liked, or would put up with, but the guy kept stalling for time. And when Lane had come up with this little arrangement, he kept framing this thing as being just for Joan’s benefit. But Roger knew exactly what Joan wanted. What Roger didn’t want was to be a slouch and deliver some ham-fisted experience, scare the guy off.

If this was actually gonna happen, he intended to do it right.

She pursed her mouth in a smirk. “You really want to know?”

“He into weird stuff? Does he dress up in your underwear or something?”

“Very funny.” Joan huffed out an amused breath through her nose. “You’ll see this for yourself, but he’s different in the bedroom. Not like you’d imagine.”

Roger was imagining real shy. So quiet he wouldn’t even rumple the sheets. “Not vanilla?”

She swatted his hand. “I’d say focused. Passionate.” The corners of her mouth turned up in a secretive smile. “Playful.”

“Hmph. All right. Let’s call this a straw poll. He like to top or bottom?”

“Either.”

“What’s he go for first? Tits or ass?”

Joan patted the top of her left breast with one hand.

Roger raised an eyebrow. Good man. “I’m assuming great foreplay, else you’d’ve dumped him by now.”

A lazy grin spread over her face. “He loves eating me out.”

Okay, that was surprising. “Attaboy.”

Certainly wouldn’t mind seeing that. She noticed the way he waggled his eyebrows, and started to laugh.

The front door opened and closed, and after a minute, Lane trudged into the room. He looked suspicious once he saw Roger sitting there.

“What are you two talking about?”

“Sex,” said Roger.

Lane flushed red and, got quiet. “Oh.”

“Speaking of, you and I gotta have that talk, or this one” —Roger jerked a thumb over at Joan, who rolled her eyes— “might call the whole thing off.”

The guy looked like he’d rather eat glass than willingly talk about his sex life with another man. “I…suppose. If we must.”

“Be nice to Lane.” Joan threw Roger an unamused look as he got up from the sofa. “He’s shy.”

“Hey,” Roger held up two hands in surrender. “I’m always nice.”

 

**

           

Well, there was no turning back now.

They’d started with dinner. Joan had poured a generous glass of red wine for each of them, and even as she brought the first two glasses to the table, Lane saw the high, sickly flush on her face, and the way she trembled when he reached to grab the stem of the glass, and their fingers brushed. He watched as her smile got brighter and brighter with every passing second.

With a small sigh, Lane took a deep drink and steeled his resolve once again as they all tucked into their steaks. She was excited. She wanted this. And because he loved her, and he was a man of his word—plus, he was not such a fool as to think that he could ever do better than Joan—he would do whatever was necessary to keep her happy and satisfied.

Lane couldn’t help glancing over at Roger from time to time as they ate. The man was handsome, obviously; despite decades of drinking and carousing, he’d still managed to age like a very rare brandy. He’d kept his hair, and his health, and was an interesting conversationalist when he wasn’t six sheets to the wind.

Well, Lane supposed, he really could do worse. Even here, at the edge of this brave new world, it soothed his pride to know that they were going to take this step with someone more or less their age. Someone they knew. Someone she trusted. Least it wasn’t going to be him, Joan, and some randy little pool boy with the pectorals of an Olympic swimming champion and the brains of a lobotomized stoat. _That_ sort of humiliation would have seemed endless.

Before he knew it, he and Roger were standing alone in the living room as Joan went through her evening toilette.

“Here.”

Roger turned around from the wet bar and held out a glass to Lane.

Whiskey. Lane pursed his lips in quick consideration, but didn’t say anything, just took the glass, knocked back the liquor in a quick gulp, then wiped his mouth with one hand before setting the glass down on a nearby table.

“Hello? Anyone home?”

Joan’s voice rang down the hall, expectant, playful.

Lane and Roger glanced at each other, once, and then went to investigate.

When they got to the bedroom, they saw Joan standing next to the bed, wearing a short, plunging nightgown, dark purple, whose lace cups were so delicate they were nearly transparent.

Lane’s face blazed hot. He could see every bit of her breasts, even through the cloth, imagined how wonderful they’d feel in his mouth.

Joan’s smile widened to a full-on smirk. “I bought a little something special.”

Roger gave a low whistle. “You’re dynamite.”

They stood there for another moment before Joan broke the silence again, nose scrunching up as she made a little adorable face at them.

“Well, are you going to come in?”

Without answering, Lane walked toward the vanity table, and quickly removed his specs with one hand, then folded them up, and put them into his jacket pocket. He didn’t know what to say, or how to put his immediate thoughts into words past what he and Roger had already discussed, but Joan seemed to sense this, and commented, in a louder voice:

“I think those suits belong on the floor.”

Behind him, Roger snorted out a laugh, and even Lane couldn’t help grinning at the palpable note of mischief in her voice.

Better stop delaying the inevitable.

He took off his jacket, vest, and shirt, and debated about the trousers for what felt like an eternity, but when he finally took them off, looked up, and saw how glassy Joan’s eyes were, how she kept staring from him back to Roger as if spellbound by her arousal, it pushed him into action.

Lane got to his knees in front of her, yanked up her lacy hem, and blessed every god in heaven that she was naked underneath. He licked a long stripe up her cunt to her most sensitive place, teasing the pearled nub there with his tongue before speeding up his attentions.

“Oh, Jesus,” she hissed, hands moving to cradle his head—and she was so wet already, her inner thighs were slick and his face was glossy from it and oh god, oh god, it was already worth it. Lane grabbed her hips with both hands, kneading the muscles of her bottom as he worked. She wasn’t going to last long; her legs were already wobbling.

“All week,” she sobbed, as Lane sucked and licked and tasted her, his usual patience replaced by frenzy, “I couldn’t stop thinking abo—ohh, there, oh my god, please, oh, please—”

When she came, it was with these long, whimpering moans, both hands tugging roughly at his hair; Lane was so consumed with lust as he continued to please her through it, the heel of one hand pressed against the front of his trousers, that he felt drunk—he could think of nothing except her.

He was startled from his reverie when her thumb brushed over his brow and forehead, and then he pulled back to stare at her. Had he missed something?

She just beamed at him, pink-faced and soft-eyed, with her dark nightgown all rumpled and a faint sheen of sweat on her temples and between her breasts. Lane adored that wibbly look; it meant that she was his and she was satisfied and it got him going every single bloody time.

“I’ll have you slow in a minute,” Lane told her in a low voice as he kissed the top of her thigh. He was going to make this incredible for her; he was going to ensure it would be a night to remember—

“Holy shit.”

Oh. Right. Lane turned slightly to see Roger standing in roughly the same spot as before—now without a stitch of clothing. Although Lane could not see his expression very well in the dim light, he could see the fit lines of the other man’s body—lean and firm, cock sticking straight out like an arrow.

Roger almost sounded impressed. “Red, you weren’t kidding.”

“Told you he was good,” Joan gave a little flounce of one shoulder as she said it. Lane’s cock twitched at hearing the compliment out loud. She’d talked about him. She’d bragged him up.

Behind Lane, Roger cleared his throat, stepped closer, and put a hand on Lane’s shoulder as he approached.

Lane startled at the touch, so noticeably that even Joan glanced down at him again, a furrow forming between her brows.

Roger sounded concerned. “This okay?”

“Yeah. Erm. You—you’re all right.”

Joan extended one hand; Lane took it and got to his feet, anticipating—well, he wasn’t sure what he was anticipating; a look? A kiss? Some sign that she was starry-eyed over him, and not the novelty of—

Roger was already leaning in to kiss her; Lane watched with a visceral mixture of excitement and jealousy as Joan bent her head, and their lips met. The first thing Lane thought was that Roger had obviously not exaggerated his own skills; Joan was already breathing heavy, chasing his mouth as Roger kissed her—deeply, passionately, but with more finesse and restraint than Lane had imagined.

Not that he’d imagined anything.

Joan let out a breathy moan, back arching a bit; Lane felt all the blood rush to his cock, and decided to put further reservations out of his mind. He bent his head to her breast; nipping and licking and teasing until her chest heaved under his attentions, until she had to pull back from Roger entirely just to breathe.

“I—uh—”

Roger cackled at her strung-out words. “Lay it on me, Red.”

She was still breathless. “Lane, keep going—”

He didn’t hesitate, and fastened his mouth to her nipple. She kept talking.

“Roger, hands—”

The other man stepped closer; Lane could hear the slide of flesh on flesh as he rubbed his palms together to warm them up. When Roger touched her belly, Joan gasped, and as his hand slid slower, she arched her back with a whine.

“Oh, my _god,_ I’ve missed—”

Lane moaned against her skin and stroked himself with his free hand. She was quivering so much she was swaying from side to side, and Roger’s arm was between them, his fingers inside her, Joan gasping out nonsense syllables, _uh uh uh,_ until—until—

She arched her back with a shout, her muscles seizing up all at once. “Oh, oh— _fuck!_ ”

Lane had to press his forehead against the top of her breast and grip himself tight in one hand to keep from coming, torn between the dual instinct to be inside her and to prolong his orgasm for as long as possible. Next to him, he could feel the muscles in Roger’s forearm as they flexed and worked together, as Roger guided her past her climax.

“Jesus Christ, Red, you’re so beautiful—yeah, that’s it, baby. Just ride it out. That’s good. You feel so good.”

Roger kept murmuring sweet words to her as she got through it, and after a minute he guided her down to the bed so she was lying on her back, red hair spilling across the blankets, a bright slick of vibrant color in a dark sea.

Lane watched as Roger extricated himself, got a knee onto the bed, and sucked his fingers clean one by one before bending down to kiss Joan’s neck and then her mouth with a soft chuckle of amusement.

“Oh, honey.” Once the other man pulled away, Lane saw Joan was looking straight at him, her eyes dancing as she saw what he was doing. “You look like you’re gonna burst.”

“Need a hand?” Roger asked, glancing over with a waggle of his eyebrows.

Lane’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly, but he didn’t know how to say _not from you_ —couldn’t do anything except meet Joan’s eyes with a pleading look.

“Come over here,” she said gently.

He lay down next to her, and the second she got a hand on his thigh, his eyes fluttered closed, and his head tipped back onto the mattress.

“Hm.”

Soft hands grasped his cock, and for a few minutes, he was lost in the sensations, revelling in the way she teased him, sure and steady, until he was so worked up that a little drop of fluid kept rising to the tip of his cock, spilling out of him—oh, god, he could keep going forever like this.

“Want anything special?” Joan asked him, and Lane opened his eyes, saw Roger standing behind her, still watching them in open admiration.

Lane didn’t hesitate. “Let me inside you.”

She straddled his hips and settled onto him with a smirk, guiding his cock inside her with a firm hand. As she began to move, canting against him in smooth, practiced motions, he gripped her hips in two hands, focused on how slick and soft she felt. He couldn’t help the moans that tore from his throat, couldn’t help reaching up to caress her breasts with two hands, and when she sucked in a breath, moved a little faster, it spurred him on.

“God, you look good together,” Roger murmured, low and gruff. “Fuck, Red. Jesus.”

She let out a loud moan.

Lane couldn’t look away. He just kept moving, tried not to think about how closely Roger was studying them and how he was touching himself and if he— _oh, god,_ that felt amazing—his eyes snapped back to Joan’s. She was focused on her own pleasure, now, her mouth falling open as she panted and writhed on top of him, one hand working between her legs and the other planted on his side for leverage.

His climax was so close; he could feel it speeding toward him like a bullet train. Without thinking, he reached out and plucked at Joan’s nipples with both hands, a surefire way to get her there with him; she groaned, and her innermost muscles fluttered around him—almost there. Lane kept doing this, tried to hold back, and the second he heard her shriek, felt her muscles lock in sweet release, he sped up his thrusts and spent himself inside her, fingers digging into her hips as he bucked up into her again and again.

She collapsed into his chest for a little while. When he was done, he lay back and covered his face with his hands, expelling a couple of quick, deep breaths.

“You okay?” someone asked.

“Blood rush,” he answered dryly, and felt Joan laugh before she dismounted him and rolled over, patting the center of his chest with one hand.

Lane glanced to the right of the bed and saw Roger standing there, palming his cock in one hand, eyes glassy with lust as he stared at Joan.

“Red, can I come inside you?”

Joan glanced at Lane, first. Lane noticed the light of hopeful expectation burning in her eyes, and simply nodded, unable to say the word _yes._

That settled, she turned and crooked one finger toward Roger in a come hither gesture. He raised his eyebrows in a very mischievous leer, and closed the distance between them effortlessly, cupping her pubis in one hand and stroking her a little before settling his weight on top of her.

They began to kiss again, messy and dirty this time; Lane watched with stunned detachment as Roger slipped his tongue into Joan’s mouth, noticed the way she trembled under him as he touched her, rubbing so gently, the way she liked.

Mouth falling open against Roger’s, Joan let out a whimper.

The noise made Lane shiver. He couldn’t help wanting to be near her when she was in the throes of excitement, and moved closer to them. With one hand, he stroked the side of Joan’s left thigh—which happened to be the leg whose foot was planted firmly against the bed.

Everything happened so quickly, then; Joan shifted her leg to grant Roger better access, he grabbed her hips with both hands, and ended up putting his palm over Lane’s.

Lane snatched his hand back instantly, and pushed Roger’s arm away. Could have qualified as a shove if it had a little more power behind it.

Not breaking his movements, Roger gave Lane a glare that could have cut glass, but didn’t say a word, just re-focused his attentions on Joan. She hadn’t even noticed the faux pas, she was so absorbed in the light touch of his fingers as he teased her open.

By the time Roger thrust into her with a groan, and his head dipped forward as he buried himself inside her, Lane had begun to see the appeal of multiple partners. He was only human, for god’s sake, and yes, it was all genuinely arousing from this angle.

With every thrust of Roger’s hips, Joan’s body rippled with desire—beautiful jubbly breasts bouncing up and down, and her soft hips and legs locked around Roger’s waist as the other man continued to move. Oh, god. Lane stroked himself faster at the pure look of satisfaction on her face; blissful and wanting all at once. God, she was beautiful this way. He was never going to forget this.

She turned her face to the right, saw Lane looking, and motioned him closer with her right hand.

Lane obeyed her silent command. He leaned over her, bent his head to her breasts again, and as he licked and sucked at each nipple, her fingers closed around his cock, made him gasp with delight. Next to them, Roger was breathless and Joan’s thumb kept brushing up against Lane’s crown and _oh, oh, oh, don’t stop._

Roger’s control seemed to be slipping; he kept whimpering as he moved. Lane didn’t dare look over, but he could generally form the picture in his mind: Roger’s eyes squeezed shut, his hands white-knuckling Joan’s hips, his mouth open in languid excitement as he panted out each breath.

“Al-almost there.”

Lane set his mind to the task at hand, and got so focused that he bit Joan’s nipple on accident. She bucked up with a shout, back arching, and so he did it again. Her hand tightened against his head and suddenly—

_Oh yes god now_

Pleasure rocketed through him in a burst of light, leaving him weak kneed and shivery, and beside him, Roger wasn’t far behind. He stuttered out a groan, grabbed Lane’s forearm with one hand, and stopped moving, buried to the hilt.

Because Lane was a gentleman—and because he was reasonably sure Joan would clock him in the face otherwise—he didn’t push Roger off this time, even when the other man let his hand linger for nearly a minute before he pulled it away, withdrew, and stumbled forward on jelly legs to lie down on Joan’s left.

“ _God,_ that was good,” Joan breathed out loud, to no one in particular. She sounded dazed. “I may never walk again.”

Lane did smile at that, but he still felt strangely awkward standing alone in front of the bed; he wasn’t quite sure where to sit or what to do. Usually, after sex, he ended up in the middle of the bed, but for some reason, he couldn’t fathom lying down next to Joan and making conversation, or spending intimate time together, not with Roger leering at them both from less than a foot away.

Clearly, no one else shared the same reservations.

“You come right before or after he started biting your tits?” Roger asked, as Joan handed him a cigarette, and then her lighter.

“During,” Joan said lightly, with a delicious little shudder as she exhaled in a cloud of smoke.

“Nice. Hell of a thing to watch.”

“You should see him when he’s patient. Drives me _crazy._ ”

“Hey, you know….should really…”

Lane tuned out their giddy chatter. Why on earth was the man trying to relive the entire evening right now, like some kind of horrible instant replay? They’d hardly had any time to enjoy themselves, for god’s sake.

“Lane?”

He snapped to attention, and met Joan’s quizzical look with a blank stare.

“Aren’t you going to come lay down?” she asked quietly.

Lane tried not to let his gaze wander over to Roger, who apparently had zero qualms about being naked, being seen naked, or going about his regular business while completely starkers. He was currently examining a bit of newspaper he’d filched off Joan’s night table.

“Oh, I was—just going to get some water first.” Lane tried to smile. It was mostly genuine. “Would—either of you like any?”

“Nah, I’m good,” Roger answered.

“I’m okay.” Joan was still peering at Lane very closely, as if she knew something was wrong. “Thanks, honey.”

In the kitchen, alone with his thoughts and the distant hum of the water heater as he filled the kettle, Lane braced his hands on the counter and let out a deep, steadying breath. Much as he appreciated Roger’s—willingness—to go along with this scheme, he hoped Joan had got the curiosity out of her system at last.

Because whatever she needed, whatever this sudden urge for wild exploration was about, Lane honestly wasn’t sure if he could do this again.

 

**

 

A few mornings later, just after a leisurely breakfast, Lane was in a chipper mood as he waited for the steaming kettle to boil.

“I’m still thinking about the other night,” Joan told him out of nowhere as she pulled out the chamomile from the kitchen cupboard. She let out a pleased sigh. “It was enjoyable, don’t you think?”

“Yes.” Lane leaned in for a kiss. “You had a nice time, didn’t you, darling? That’s all that matters.”

“Absolutely.” Joan rubbed her thumb against his cheek as the kettle whistled. Lane pulled back with a contented noise, took the kettle off the stove, and turned around to fuss with the tea service.

“Would you be opposed to doing it again?”

 _Oh, god._ Lane was so thankful he had his back turned at that moment, because his face became a rictus of sheer terror.

“Again?” he asked carefully, as he poured boiling water into the blue willow teapot with a shaking hand. “Did—was there something you weren’t able to—”

“Oh, no. It’s not—I enjoyed myself, obviously. It was wonderful. But I just—”

She got quiet. When he turned around, he saw that Joan was blushing, and stared at her uncomprehending for several seconds. Joan was many things, but shy wasn’t one of them, particularly when it came to affairs of the bedroom.

“I didn’t get to see you do anything,” she finally said, and avoided his gaze for a few seconds before looking him dead in the eyes. “Um. To each other.”

Lane’s brain promptly ground to a halt, re-started, and then sailed straight past his usual sense of alarm in favor of the supreme and terrifying hat trick, which generally lay somewhere between total cerebral insanity and complete gibbering buffoonery.

“To—to—oh.” Quickly, he put down the teapot, and ran his hand across his mouth, utterly lost for words. _“Oh._ Well. Well, Joan, I— _”_

When he met her gaze again, she had gone ashen, and her eyes were wide with shock. God. She’d clearly expected him to agree, or tell her it wasn’t going to be an issue, or perhaps just say that he was curious.

“You’re allowed to say no. If you have to think about it, just tell me no.”

“Erm,” Lane began dully. His head was pounding, and he couldn’t get over how quickly Joan was talking, now, as if she were trying to convince herself that this scenario wasn’t even worthwhile. “Well, it’s not—I really haven’t ever, erm—”

 _Oh god,_ his brain roared into the heavy, charged silence, jangling up his speech and making him rigid with fear, _oh god oh god oh god you’ve got to do this or you’ll lose her. Why are you hesitating? What are you waiting for?_

“Honey, please don’t worry about it.” She gave him a tight smile. “Really. Forget I said anything.”

But—how could he?

 

**

           

“I can do better.”

Lane flung the heavy door open and strode into Roger’s office as he spoke, only to find Caroline and the man himself sitting on the sofa together, glancing up from a newspaper held across their laps.

He went white. “Oh. Sorry. I—didn’t realise you—”

“Hi, Lane. We’re just relaxing.” Caroline folded the paper in half and handed it over to Roger as if this kind of thing happened all the time. “Ten across is estuary.”

Roger’s eyes widened; he quickly penciled in the word as the secretary left the room and shut the door behind her.

“Huh. Could have sworn it was estates.”

“I can do better,” Lane said again, louder this time, standing as tall as he possibly could. “The other night—I was anxious. I—I want to try again.“

“You said it was only one night.”

Why on earth was Roger acting so coy?

“Yes, but—I want it to be—seamless, do you understand? The—this experience is especially for her, and I—”

Roger clicked his tongue. “Doesn’t work that way, sorry.”

Lane must have looked baffled, because the other man just stared at him like he was missing something very, very obvious.

“Look: as much fun as that was, I’m a one-man band, not a traveling freak show. And I didn’t appreciate getting my hand slapped like some rulebreaker in Catholic school.”

The answer came to Lane in a sudden rush of inspiration, as simple as breathing. _You hurt Roger’s feelings._

Dear god.

“Did I—if I was anything other than—” _Polite? Cordial? Nice?_ “—respectful to you, then—then I’m sorry.”

“Yeah? Well, Miss Manners isn’t exactly what we’re angling for here, Lane.”

Lane blurted out his next sentence before he had time to think. “Well, forgive me for not skipping in glee! We hardly know each other!”

Roger grimaced. “Jesus.”

Oh, lord. Lane tried again. “I—I mean, we’ve been acquainted for several years. I’ve seen you work, I’ve seen you—” oh, he couldn’t even say the word naked to another man, never mind the rest “—in the midst of a very intimate situation, but we don’t—we’re not—close.”

“Come on. We’re friendly.”

Lane scoffed. “Not really.”

_Only because of Joan._

“You don’t know me, really. You certainly don’t know what I like or what I want—not strictly speaking, just—in a rather general sense.”

Roger was staring at Lane in a way that suggested Lane was speaking a totally foreign language. “You don’t have to be close to enjoy sex with another man.”

Lane flushed red, glanced at the ground. “I’m sure that’s—true.”

“But it’s a big deal for you.”

“I—well, I—don’t know exactly. Never went around fantasizing about it.”

Roger heaved out a sigh. Lane gave him a very poisonous glare in response until he realized the noise wasn’t out of boredom or annoyance. The man was staring off into the distance, mouth pursed, eyes glazed over, but when he glanced back at Lane, his eyes snapped into focus.

“What do you do for fun? When you’re not in bed, I mean.”

“Erm. Well—television, I suppose. Books. Films. Conversation.”

_Walking. Chess. Cards. Writing letters. Building models._

“Okay. So we start there,” Roger said with a shrug, like they’d just put paid to it. “Slap the bandaid on for a couple of weeks, then rip it off, try again.”

“Oh.” Lane was surprised by the timeline. “You—a couple of weeks?”

“Yeah. We do this again, we’ve gotta give it time.” Roger was surprisingly calm. “Couple of dinners with Joanie in the interim, maybe some poker. Something easy. Take the pressure off.”

The suggestion was nowhere near as hellish as Lane had imagined.

“Right.” He exhaled a breath, felt relieved. “Good.”

 

**

 

When Joan picked up her private line, just after lunch, the voice on the other end barely bothered with a hello, and just shot straight to the point.

“Hey. So, your husband just asked me out.”

She blinked, stunned. “I’m sorry?”

“Yeah.” Roger huffed out a belly laugh. “Guy tore into my office like a bat out of hell, told me he was real anxious, and said he couldn’t properly sleep with me until we _got to know each other better._ ” He laughed again, sharper this time. “Isn’t that a gas? Had to check my calendar once he left, make sure it wasn’t eighteen thirty or something.”

Joan was still positive that she was hallucinating.

_“What?”_

She’d seen just how badly Lane had clammed up this morning, and was sure it meant she was going to have to bite her tongue about this particular fantasy for the rest of her natural life. Normally, Lane was a very open and very sexual person – it was one of the many reasons why they’d enjoyed such a healthy relationship, from the very beginning – but she had never seen him get so flustered over a single request.

Maybe this was why. Maybe it was just a case of nerves?

He was good at romancing women. He had practice, and experience.

Was he worried about not living up to expectations with another man, or maybe with Roger, specifically? Was it about his father? Or Lewis? Or the weird boarding school thing? Hadn’t another boy kissed him when he was in school? Was she just imagining that?

“Uh, earth to Joanie. Hello? Should I wait for the firing squad?”

“I—um—no,” she managed to sputter. “That’s fine. Do—whatever he needs to do to be comfortable. Um. Are you free Saturday?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [All of MM fandom to me re: this story.](https://media.tenor.co/images/5a8c8adac01fcddd46710dd572bc43cf/raw)
> 
> [(Me back to the fandom.)](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/16/67/46/166746e63d88c27d513c75bb85495c60.jpg)
> 
> I've jokingly referred to this story as "the devil's threeway/the devil OT3" for MONTHS, and if you don't like it, too bad. If you do like it, keep reading, because there's MORE WHERE THIS CAME FROM. Drew inspiration from a lot of places, but [this article on swingers in the 70s](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/psychology-yesterday/201308/the-american-way-swinging) was one of them.


	2. Chapter 2

**JUNE**

 

 

When Roger arrived on Saturday afternoon, it was with a bottle of gin under one arm and a twelve pack of cheap beer under the other.

“Red Sox are about to get their asses handed to ‘em,” he said, as Lane raised his eyebrows in surprise at the bounty. “Like hell I’m missing this game. I got five hundred dollars riding on a blowout.”

“Oh.” Thank god; Lane was going to have to avoid the news all weekend, if he missed this match. “Well, that’s—come in. It’s already on.”

Joan had already left for her friend’s – she’d made herself scarce again, in a way Lane knew was deliberate – so the rest of the house was empty.

They sat down: Roger on the sofa, directly in front of the TV, and Lane at the other end. A loud _click_ echoed through the room as Roger cracked open the gin.

An hour later, Boston had already scored two more runs, and looked to be on their way to a third as Evans hit the ball and sent it soaring into the stands.

“Oh, goddamn it!” Roger took another swig from the bottle, gesturing wildly at the TV with one flat-palmed hand as he kicked at an empty beer can. “Jesus. Look at that asshole. Doesn’t look like he could find home plate on a map.”

Lane snorted out a laugh. “Don’t feel too sorry for him. He’s got scads of—of pretty girls throwing themselves at him afterward.”

“Who gives a shit. He’s a lousy lay.”

“How the hell do you know that?”

“I don’t. But you know what they used to say about the Red Sox.”

Lane shook his head no.

Roger's face split into a grin. “Come up short and always finish early.”

“Oh, good god.” Lane started laughing, and pointed at the screen. “Tell it to that chap, then. Tell him he’s a rubbish shag.”

Roger cupped two hands over his mouth as if he were in the middle of the stands and the entire stadium could hear him. “Hear that? You’re a rubbish fucking shag, sweetheart! Get off the field!”

 

**

 

Two hours later, Lane was sitting on the floor with his back against the edge of the sofa cushions, while Roger was stretched out on his side across the couch with his shoes kicked off, three buttons undone, and an empty bottle of gin rolling around by his knees.

“Aw, for fuck’s sake,” Roger snapped at the television, as the Red Sox struck out their first batter. Top of the ninth and a tie game. “Why doesn’t this bunch of morons learn how to play ball already? Jesus. Coulda had some extra pocket money, and you shitheads blew it.”

When Tiant struck out the second Yankee, Lane moaned out loud, and scrubbed at his hair with two hands, like their shitty playing was making his head hurt. Roger stared with wide, unfocused eyes as the man carded his fingers through a handful of fine red hair. It looked silky. He wondered if it was silky.

“Oh, my god, I hate the Yanks.” Lane let out a performative whine as he let his head loll to the left, and pulled his hands down. He was staring right at Roger. “I know they’re your team, but I bloody hate them. Th’Mets are so much—”

Without speaking, Roger leaned in, tilted his head, and captured Lane’s lips with his own. Lane’s mouth was warm and soft, he had a scratchy five o’clock shadow, and he smelled a little like lavender soap. Before Roger could deepen the kiss, or run his hands through the guy’s hair like he really wanted to, Lane pulled away with a sharp breath.

They stared at each other. Nobody spoke for a second.

“Sorry. Erm.” Lane turned his head to the right, away from Roger “It’s—it’s a bit weird.”

“Why? Cause of the mustache?” Roger laughed, low in his throat. “Not a fan of caterpillar lip?”

“No.” A pause. “’S not that.”

“All right, Pryce. Level with me. You ever kissed a guy before?”

Lane finally met Roger’s inquisitive gaze with a flat, resigned glare. “Yes.”

“Okay, that's something. Recently?”

Lane let out a deep sigh. “Boarding school.”

“Huh.” A light had come on in Roger’s brain. “Wonder if that’s where it all starts? Up until the service, when there were barely any girls, I’d never even thought about it. Had you?”

Lane let out a sigh, and mumbled something that Roger couldn’t hear.

“What was that? Didn’t hear ya.”

Roger watched one corner of Lane’s mouth twitch down.

“I said,” and Lane’s voice got quiet again. He was staring at the screen like he wasn’t even seeing it, “does it matter what I think?”

“Sure it does.”

“You’re just saying that,” Lane muttered.

Jeez, had somebody come in and stabbed the guy with a safety pin in the last forty seconds? He was deflating faster than a popped balloon.

Roger tried for humor. “Come on. You think I’d stick my tongue down just any guy’s throat?”

Lane shut his eyes. A physically pained grimace flitted across his face before he opened them again. “For god’s sake, Roger. Don’t pretend to want something you don’t. Because you’re not here for me, and we both know it, and the sooner you accept that, the better off things will become.”

“Jesus,” said Roger, slowly. He forced himself not to blurt out the first dumbass comeback that came to mind, counting to three in his head like his therapist had taught him. Don’t turn this into a joke. “You think I’m _using_ you?”

“Aren’t you?” Lane asked simply.

Roger’s mouth fell open.

“Fuck.” _That’s what you really think of me?_ “So I’m, what, some desperate, piece of shit asshole who just goes around hitting on all his exes’ husbands, in case the wives still want to sleep with him, too?”

Lane shook his head. “No. I—you do care about her. I mean, you might even love her, in your own way. I—I’m really not sure. But apart from that, it’s obvious what’s going on. Erm. You care for her, and you’ll—well, you’ll put up with me, and I’ll put up with you, and that’s just the way of it.”

“Hang on a second—”             

“No, don’t.” Lane was already stumbling up to his feet, both hands raised in the air, like he was surrendering. “All that matters is that she’s happy, in the end. I don’t care how or when we accomplish it, long as that’s the final result.”

“And what about if you’re happy? You don’t think Red cares about that?”

Lane looked away. The hangdog expression on his face sent a bolt of ice straight into Roger’s stomach. Jesus Christ. This guy had been with Joan since sixty seven and was still so panicked about losing her that he’d willingly let another man into his bed. And he didn’t even care if that man made him happy or if either person gave a shit about Lane in return. Why would a guy do that to himself? Why would Lane put himself through that kind of torture—watching the woman he loved sleep with some asshole who wouldn’t even give him the time of day—if he wasn’t even gonna get anything out of it?

 _Look. I’m not a shithead,_ Roger wanted to say. _If you’re up for it, I’m willing to do right by you._

“I’m off to bed,” Lane said after a minute.

“Game’s not even over,” Roger pointed out.

“Nearly over.” Lane glanced at the TV, where the Sox had just scored another goddamn run. Bottom of the ninth. Yankees were fucked. “Anyway. You can—just let yourself out. There’s a key under the mat.”

 

**

 

About thirty minutes later, Joan found Roger sitting slumped in the driver’s seat of his car, with his feet on the concrete, his elbows braced on his knees, a cigarette dangling from one hand and the door hanging open.

“How’d it go?” she asked.

“Eh,” Roger scoffed; wisps of smoke dissipated into the dark. Ash flaked off his cigarette as he waved his right hand through the air. “Sox won. No more beer. And I’m out five hundred bucks.”

“You know what I meant,” was all Joan said.

“Yeah.” Roger considered his words carefully. No way he could tell Joanie that Lane thought he was being used; she’d call it all off and beat herself up for the rest of her natural life if she thought she was hurting him like this. “Tell you what, kid. You sure know how to get the slippery fish.”

“So did you two talk?” Joan asked after a moment. Her heels clicked as she walked over and leaned back against the side of the car.

“Oh, was that the other option?” Roger flashed her a dirty grin, and relished how her cheeks got all ruddy, even in the dark. “Come on, Red. You really expect a man to start necking when there’s baseball on?”

“Shut up. Give me that.”

With a snort, she reached over, plucked the cigarette from his fingers, and took a quick drag.

He was pretty sure he’d finally landed on the best way to phrase this little problem. Long as he didn’t make it about jealousy or bad feelings, just the awkwardness, she might just assume it was par for the course.

“Riddle me this, Holloway. What’d you do when he got all shy?”

Joan’s mouth pursed up into a little moue as she thought about it, and handed him back the cigarette. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Okay. Specifically, somewhere between where you quit screaming at each other and started screwing your brains out.”

“Charming,” Joan said dryly. “You know, you could just talk to him.”

“Yeah. No dice,” Roger informed her.

He’d been thinking about this for almost an hour. If they were ever gonna solve this problem, it wasn’t gonna be with a damn drum circle and a round of _kumbayas_.

“Well,” and Joanie’s mouth lifted into a proud little smirk. “You could try bossing him around.”

Now _that_ sounded interesting. “’Scuse me?”

“He likes it when I take the lead,” she said lightly, although her smile was now so wide it nearly split her face. “I mean, he’s flirtatious. He enjoys a challenge. I don’t know. Maybe he’ll like that from you, too.”

“Hey, Red,” Roger accepted the cigarette back from her, and took one last drag before stubbing the butt out under his loosely-tied wingtip, “anyone ever tell you you’re a goddamn genius?”

She just giggled.

**

           

The next time he and Lane were alone together, Roger decided to push the guy’s boundaries—not by much, just a little farther than normal.

Provoking him was as easy as breathing. Lane was in the middle of showing him some World War I models he was building in the study, and all it took to get him riled up was to grab one bomber off the table and hold it just out of reach.

“Stop that!” Lane hissed, as Roger tossed the little wooden airplane back onto a pile of cotton batting that Lane was using to create cloud dioramas. It bounced harmlessly onto the cotton and turned over onto its back.

“Can’t make me,” Roger taunted, and ruffled Lane’s hair with one quick hand before dodging closer.

They shoved each other harmlessly for a couple of seconds before Roger got one arm around Lane’s side, and pulled him sideways, down onto the arm of the sofa.

“Come on. Let’s wrestle a little.”

Before the other guy could blink, Roger had pulled him flush against his chest, like they were ready to scrimmage on a pair of mats in the gym.

“Christ!” Lane scrabbled out of Roger’s lap like the man had just grown three heads. As he moved backwards, one hand hit nothing but air, and he fell off the sofa with a thud, gasping like Roger had just tried to tie him up—and not in a good way. “Get off me!”

His face was drawn and pale, and his eyes darted nervously back and forth as he scrambled to his feet.

“Fuck.” Well, this was bad. “Lane, I’m sorry. I wasn’t—”

_“Don’t ever do that again!”_

“Hey. Shit. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Roger held up two hands, palms out. “Listen, I was just trying to lighten things up. Honest.”

“Fuck off!”

Without another word, Lane spun on his heel and walked right out of the room, grumbling curses under his breath.

“God damn it,” Roger said to the empty room. How the hell could he have misread the guy that badly? Trembling, he ran two hands through his hair, and then shoved a couple of books off of the coffee table. _“God damn it!”_

 

**

 

Dinner was bad. Lane barely spoke, Joanie kept staring at both of them like they’d grown extra heads, and Roger didn’t know how to say the words that kept sticking in his throat.

_What do I do? How do I fix it?_

The second Lane bolted from the dinner table—leaving ninety percent of his steak untouched—Joan reached out and put a hand on Roger’s arm. She didn’t even have to ask what happened to see that Roger had fucked up, and as they talked it over, he was thankful that she knew him well enough to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Well, obviously, that reaction wasn’t ideal,” she mused as she nursed a cigarette. “You may have looked too forceful.”

“I didn’t like how the whole thing went down.” Roger tried to figure out the best way to make his point. After a few seconds, he gave up. The truth was going to come out somehow. “Joanie, he looked at me like I was gonna hurt him. And you know me. I _never_ would.”

Her face clouded with sadness. She stilled her hand.

“I’m sure he understands that, deep down.”

“Does he talk to you about this stuff? I mean, is it something I can fix?”

Joan let out a long breath, and pressed her mouth into a thin line. Oh, shit. Roger knew that look. It meant that those two had talked about something, and that she wasn’t gonna tell him a thing until he went back to Lane and apologized.

“Could be an intimacy issue.” She thought for another second. “His father was controlling.”

Roger tried to parse this out. _It isn’t telling if you can guess what happened._

“Did his old man beat him with a belt, or something? Everybody had that.”

Joan winced, but just shook her head no.

“Worse?” Roger thought back to some of the guys he’d known in the Navy, the ones who saw boot camp and basic training as some fucking vacation paradise compared to the shit they came from. Guys whose fathers and uncles and brothers were legends for flying into rages at the drop of a hat. Who’d had to defend themselves against full-grown men from the time they were kids, and usually grew up to be real hotheaded bastards. They all laughed about it, obviously, but sometimes, it really made you wonder how shitty it was at Mom and Dad’s. “Jesus. What’d the guy do, try to kill him?”

She made an agonized face; Roger felt his heart drop into his stomach. If that was close, but somehow not _it,_ then he’d seriously fucked up.

“Ah, shit. I’m a fucking moron.”

“No, you’re not. I should have said something earlier.” Joan’s voice was low. “Just give him time. It’ll blow over eventually.”

“Well, obviously, I’m not gonna be an asshole.” Roger heaved out a sigh. “Why wouldn’t he say anything? Fuck. Joanie, I really was just trying to play around.”

“I know.”

“I wasn’t trying to hurt him.”

“I know,” Joan said again. Her hand had closed over his wrist. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” Roger muttered. The lump of guilt in his stomach felt as heavy as a cannonball. “I gotta make this right.”

He stood up, and ran a hand through the back of his hair. “Listen, I’m gonna—hit the hay. Think all this through.”

Her eyes widened. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” He waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “C’mon. We’ll take a little break, figure everything out in the morning.”

Joan’s eyes were still frantic, but her voice sounded pretty normal, which was a hell of a feat. “Okay. If that’s what you want.”

“Don’t worry, Red. Everything’s gonna be fine.”

He kissed her forehead as he got up from the table, and as he went into the living room and pulled down a blanket from the back of the sofa, he tried not to dwell on the horror that had crept into Lane’s face as he scrambled backwards. It nauseated him. Sure, sometimes he could be a jackass, but he’d never take advantage of a guy who didn’t want to be with him.

_Did Lane even want to be with him? Was he just faking it?_

Roger fell asleep thinking of all the ways he could possibly apologize. Hours later, he woke up to the sound of footsteps in the kitchen, and squinted up at the ceiling as he tried to catch his bearings. In the other room, a spoon clattered into the sink with a metallic thunk, followed by the clank of a plastic cup rattling against the counter, and a low, hissed curse.

Well, it clearly wasn’t Joanie.

He could hear Lane even before he saw him. When he walked into the room, the guy was as winded as if he’d been sprinting.

“R—Roger.”

The back of Roger’s neck tingled at the soft panic in Lane’s tremulous voice. _Something’s wrong_. He sat up in a flash, and realized for the first time that Lane was bent over double on the other side of the sofa, one hand clutching at the top of the cushions, gasping for breath.

“Shit. What’s wrong? Is it your heart? Are you choking?”

Lane couldn’t answer. He was breathing so hard it sounded like his throat had closed up; heaving out agonized, whimpering hiccups. Like he was panicking, or hyperventilating. His eyes bulged with terror, but he looked over, shook his head no with one palm pressed to his throat.

Roger barely had enough time to think _that kid in Guam_ before he leapt up and guided Lane over to the sofa. Quickly, he pulled the guy into a sitting position, positioning Lane in front of him so he sat between Roger’s splayed legs, his back to Roger’s chest. Then he put one hand over Lane’s heart – felt the racing _ba-bump ba-bump ba-bump_ strong and frantic under his palm – and the other over Lane’s diaphragm, and tried to relax as much as possible, his chin nestled into the guy’s shoulder.

“Hey. I’ve got you, okay? We’re gonna breathe—we’re gonna get you calm. Just concentrate on my voice. Deep breath in.”

Lane was still jerking against him, frantic and panicked, but Roger just counted to seven in his head as he took a breath, held it, and then let it all out, using the same seven count again.

“Don’t focus on anything else. Just match the rhythm. In.”

He inhaled through his nose, held the lungful of air, and then expelled it in a rush, his fingers miming the beats over Lane’s abdomen.

“Out.”

They repeated this for a couple of minutes, but it was still rough going. Lane was still wheezing like an accordion and Roger was starting to get worried.

“Come on, sweetheart. Breathe with me.”

“C-can’t,” Lane croaked in a tiny voice, but Roger shushed him, kind of petted his chest a little.

“Yeah, you can. You can do it. In.” He inhaled. “Out.” He exhaled.

They kept doing this for a long time, for what felt like hours, until Lane’s breathing was shaky but more or less even. By the time he had calmed down a little, the poor guy was trembling so hard he could hardly sit up, collapsed against Roger’s chest with his head lolling back against the sofa.

“Shh.” Roger kept breathing deeply, but decided to talk a little more now that the guy was responsive, and just kept stroking one hand up Lane’s chest and stomach. “You’re okay. You’re okay. I’ve got you. I won’t hurt you.”

Lane made a kind of hiccuping noise, and for a second, Roger thought the guy might be panicking again—but when Lane’s shoulders heaved a little instead, and he sounded like he was swallowing a loogie—Roger realized with a jolt that the guy was crying. Oh, shit.

He tried changing the subject. “Joanie know about these?”

“Erm.” Lane sniffed loudly. “Yeah.”

“Well, don’t worry, I’ve seen ‘em before, too.” Roger didn’t know whether to be surprised or relieved that they were talking about this. “When I was in the Pacific, we had a kid in our bunk, used to seize up like this every night until he got discharged. Seabees. Whole unit got blasted to shit at Iwo Jima, you know?”

Lane brought one arm up to swipe at his face; the gesture looked lethargic. Arms must hurt like hell. “Oh.”

Shit. Well, that didn’t work.

“Anyway. Not important.” Roger started petting him again, and on an impulse, leaned to one side so he was stretched out on the couch on his left side, with Lane tucked into him, like they were spooning. Roger’s muscles were even a hell of a lot less sore in this position, although it felt safe, like before. That was probably good. “I’ll shut up now.”

Lane shifted like he wanted to change positions; Roger turned onto his back, and moved toward the frame of the couch so the guy could get up without getting all tangled, but Lane didn’t leave. He just rolled closer so he was almost lying on his stomach, now, with one arm flung over Roger’s torso, and his cheek pillowed against Roger’s chest.

Huh. Okay. After a second, Roger put his arm back around Lane’s shoulders.

When the guy spoke again, it was almost in a whisper.

“Can you—keep—moving your hand?”

“Oh.” Roger was pleasantly surprised, and wound his other arm around Lane, so one palm splayed against the middle of his back, and made slow circles against his damp t-shirt. “Sure.”

“I don’t know w-why that happened,” Lane finally whispered, but Roger made a shushing noise.

“Hey, hey, hey. Don’t say anything if you don’t want to. Just relax. Just breathe. All right?”

“Mmkay,” Lane said after a moment.

 

**

           

“What’s going on?”

Huh? Roger cracked one eye open to see Joan standing at the foot of the sofa, rubbing sleep out of her eyes with one hand and frowning at them. Behind her, pre-dawn light streamed into the room through three big windows. 

Roger realized a couple of things real quick: one, that Lane was asleep on top of him – snoring a little, with his face pressed into his shirtfront – and two, that he definitely had a palm on Lane’s hips. He gave Joanie a wry glance that said he was pretty sure how this looked.

“This one wigged out after you went to bed. So I hung around.”

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“You did?”

And Jesus, now Joanie looked like she was about to cry, biting her bottom lip like she didn’t want to blurt out the first stupid thing that came to mind. Without saying a word, she walked closer, leaned down, and kissed him, her thumb brushing over his chin. After that, she dipped her head down and kissed Lane’s temple, brushing a stray piece of hair away from his face.

Lane stirred at the contact. Roger felt Lane’s breathing speed up as he groaned and started to wake up.

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty. Good morning.”

Lane groaned again. For a second, he curled forward into Roger’s chest, one hand scruching up Roger’s vest. His forehead wrinkled up. “Wha—”

“Take your time, honey,” Joan scratched Lane’s upper back. Roger felt her nails skitter over his arm as she pulled her hand away, and got a nice chill from the sensation. “We’ll have tea in a minute.”

“Mmkay.”

It still took the guy a couple of minutes to get his bearings. At one point, he got so quiet that Roger was sure he’d fallen asleep again.

“Not that I’m against sleeping in,” Roger ruffled the guy’s hair to wake him up fully, and maybe even to prove there were no hard feelings, “but get up, cause I got to take a whiz.”

Lane bolted into a sitting position, wincing as he got level with the direct sunlight. His hair was sticking out in ten different directions; without his glasses and no stuffy suit to hide behind, he looked about a decade younger. He shielded his face from the morning sun with one hand, and rubbed at his eyes with the other, and it was so damn cute Roger had no idea what to do with the warm feeling that unfurled in his chest.

“Hmph. Sorry.”

“Don’t sweat it.”

Roger clapped him on the knee, got to his feet, and whistled the whole way down to the bathroom.

 

**

 

Whatever Roger had said to Lane between last night and this morning – and Joan didn’t ask, because some things needed to remain private – it must have worked like gangbusters.

That afternoon, as Roger napped on the sofa in the afternoon sun, and she was lying in bed flipping through a new _Cosmopolitan_ , Lane knocked on the half-open door, and closed it behind him.

“Hi.” She sat up fast. “Everything okay?”

He nodded, but seemed very anxious; Joan watched as he walked over to the bureau and pulled open the middle drawer, then shut it again. His hands stilled on the lip of the dresser before he finally spoke.

“I think Roger’s—afraid,” he said after a long pause.

Joan opened her mouth, and then shut it again, before she could say something stupid.

“He keeps apologizing, and talking about genuine companionship, and—and intimacy, and—rather a lot of things. You’ve probably had this conversation plenty of times.”

Not really; although Joan still had her suspicions about why Roger was so clingy in the first place. Eight months since Mona’s heart attack and he still wouldn’t breathe a word about it. He didn’t even say her name. But she could see the heartbreak in his eyes every time he so much as heard Nat King Cole on the radio.

“What did he say?”

Was it because another man would understand losing a wife better than Joan could? Was it sexual? Was he worried that Lane didn’t desire him?

Lane shook his head, and turned to stare out their bedroom window. His eyes were very distant.

“I think he doesn’t feel—wanted,” Lane told her finally. “Says he won’t be a third wheel, and that he won’t intrude, if he isn’t truly welcome. Erm. He kept saying he didn't want to hurt anyone.”

_Jesus._

“And I told him that it wasn’t—I know I haven’t been very forthcoming about my feelings on the matter, but it _has_ been an adjustment, and he obviously sees the, erm, reluctance.” Lane was pacing, now. Joan watched him with mounting shock as he kept talking. “But his logic—it’s a false equivalence. He’s trying to pretend ducking out is for everyone’s own good, when there’s obviously—he doesn’t feel as if we’d like for him to be here. On his own merits.”

Joan finally found her voice; it was very small.

“ _Do_ you want him to be here?”

After a moment, Lane nodded once.

“Well, I—I’d like to try. He deserves that much.”

She sucked in a sharp breath. Holy shit.

“And I don’t know what you’re thinking, or how you suggest we do this, but it feels—right. I can’t explain why, but it's important.” Joan tried not to look as flabbergasted as she felt as Lane crossed the room and kissed her forehead in a distracted way. “I mean, if Roger truly wants more than—well, than one night—then he deserves positive attention. He deserves our faith. And if we can fill that need for him, even temporarily—then isn’t—isn’t that a good thing?”

God, this man. He was so selfless when it came to the precious few people he cared about. Joan treasured him more and more, every single day.

“I bloody _love_ you,” she said, and tossed her magazine aside.

 

**

           

This time, Lane and Roger lay on the living room carpet together, panting as they wrestled around on the floor, Lane flat on his back with one leg wrapped around Roger’s waist and Roger pinning one of Lane’s arms above his head.

In a nearby corner of the living room, Joan sat on a nearby loveseat, watching them with a skeptical expression. Boys. Why couldn’t they just talk about their feelings and cut through the bullshit? Instead, they just kept teasing each other like little kids jumped up on too much sugar.

“Hey.” When Lane let out a growl, Roger eased up on the hold, concern knitting his brows together. “You okay?”

“Come on,” Lane snapped, still breathless. “Let’s go.”

With a grunt, he tried to use the momentum of his weight to rock their bodies forward, push Roger up and backward, but the older man just tightened his hold on Lane’s arms, kept them above his head.

“This really how you want to get off?” Roger huffed out a short, sharp laugh. “All friction, no girl?”

“Shut up,” Lane hissed, like Roger’s all-knowing attitude was infuriating.

“I’m serious.” Roger rolled his hips into Lane’s in a slow, purposeful way, which cased the other man’s eyes to widen. “How long’s it been?”

Lane swallowed. Roger’s eyes tracked the movement of his throat.

“’S fine.”

Roger rolled his hips again, and this time, Lane breathed out an audible, tiny moan. “Doesn’t feel fine.”

Lane’s hands relaxed into loose fists, and for a second, Joan was sure he was going to shove Roger off into the floor. But he didn’t move: just lay there, his breathing a little heavy, watching Roger like he had no idea what to do next.

Roger let go of one of his wrists, and brought his right hand up to Lane’s face. Cautiously, like he expected it to get smacked away, he reached out, cupped Lane’s face with his right palm, and drew a jagged path from his cheek to his lips with two fingers, brushed the pad of one thumb over the cupid’s bow of his mouth. His eyes were hooded as he watched Lane watching him, and traced a slow circle around Lane’s full lower lip.

Lane’s mouth parted. He didn’t push Roger off. He didn’t look away.

Joan felt desire coil in her stomach like a spring.

“Let me touch you. I’ll take care of you,” Roger whispered to Lane as he continued those gentle touches, fingertips now stroking across the curve of Lane’s jaw. Lane was panting a little now, and his hips jerked up into Roger’s, and after a second, he nodded once, like words would be too much. _Yes_.

He was so bashful he could barely hold Roger’s gaze after he did this.

Roger saw the shyness as clearly as he saw everything else, and so carefully, he leaned down and kissed him, unspeakably soft. Joan watched as Lane tensed visibly, and then began to relax into the kiss, opening his mouth a little more. As their mouths moved together, Roger ran one hand up and down the other man’s side, like he was savoring every second. He let go of Lane’s pinned arm, and after another second, Lane rested his palm on Roger’s shoulder.

Joan couldn’t stop watching them. It was spellbinding. The way Roger nipped and licked and sucked at Lane’s mouth, deepening the kiss until Lane gasped against his lips; his hands dug into Roger’s shirtfront, and his entire body trembled.

She had never seen either of them be so vulnerable or tender with each other. It was intensely erotic.

“Don’t,” she heard Lane rasp out, as Roger pulled away to let him breathe.

Roger was playing with the buttons on Lane’s shirt. One hand stroked idle circles across his broad chest as they lay pressed together. “I know.”

He rolled his hips again, now straddling one of Lane’s legs, and Lane made a strangled noise.

“Oh!” Lane’s eyes fluttered closed. “Come on.”

“I’m ready,” Roger huffed out a noise like a laugh. He stroked a trail down Lane’s stomach, and cupped Lane over his trousers with one hand, eliciting a hiss of breath. “I’ve got you.”

Roger unzipped him, and snuck one hand inside his fly. Joan wondered if he’d touch bare skin first, or just tease, fingers ghosting over soft cotton, feeling the taut hardness straining underneath.

His fingers must have hit the right spot, because Lane thrust up with a plaintive moan, one hand flying to the floor, gripping the carpet.

Oh, god, Joan was so wet just watching them; the way Lane’s eyes rolled back in his head every time Roger moved his hand, the way Roger seemed fascinated by Lane’s reaction to every little caress, awe in his eyes. I did that to you. I can do that to you.

By the time Roger had tugged Lane’s trousers open and was lying next to him, stroking him in earnest, she could hardly keep from touching herself, and pressed the heel of one hand against her clit. Not yet.

After a few more minutes, Lane was practically writhing with need, gasping out these little erratic breaths. Roger just kept kissing him, messy and open, kept pumping his hand. One of Lane’s palms lay flush against the front of Roger’s trousers, like he wanted to reciprocate in kind but was too lust-drugged to do anything about it.

“Oh,” he gasped, as Roger twisted his hand on a downstroke, “f— _ah_ —”

“Jesus,” Roger made a noise, low in his throat. “Look at you.”

Lane let out a whimper, and put one arm over his face, shielding his eyes and half his nose from view. “Mmph—”

“Yeah, I’m looking. I want to see it. You’re gonna come soon, huh? All worked up just from this, my hand on your cock.”

Joan sucked in a sharp breath. Oh, she loved it when Roger talked dirty.

“I bet you would. I bet you’d look fucking incredible.”

Roger was leaning in to nudge Lane’s arm aside, stroking faster, capturing his mouth in a quick kiss before Lane cried out again, the back of his head pressing into the carpet as he arched his hips.

Oh, Jesus, he wasn’t going to last much longer. Neither was she.

“You’re beautiful,” Roger just kept watching Lane’s face, totally rapt as he babbled.

“Ah, ah, ah—oh, god, please. I n-need—”

Roger glanced left, quick, as if asking her permission, and his face split into a wide grin once he saw what she was doing. He stroked Lane faster.

“You know who else wants to see you? Red can’t get enough of this. You’re hard and hot and right on the edge, she’s trying to catch up—”

A deep groan tore from Lane’s throat, his eyes now squeezed closed, and Joan forced herself to slow her own movements just so she could see him.

“Come on, sweetheart, I’ve got you, I’ve got you, feels so fucking—”

“ _Ah!_ ”

Lane curled into Roger’s hand with a wordless shout, the first stripe going halfway up his chest, spattering across his open shirt and trousers. Roger made a pleased noise, stroked him through it with gentle encouragement. _Yeah, yeah, just like that, so damn good._ And Lane just kept moaning and thrashing—trembling so hard Joan could see it from her chair, oh, shit, she needed—

She pressed down with two fingers, came hard, and after a couple of minutes, once she finally sat up, Lane had gone quiet. He was lying flat on his back, in nothing but his shorts, with Roger on top of him again.

Roger was still babbling. He always did that when he got overheated. “God, sweetheart, you’re so flushed, you should see the way you—”

“Hush,” Lane leaned forward and pressed his lips to the expanse of skin between Roger’s collarbone and his undershirt, which caused him to shut up, and swallow hard. “Your turn.”

Roger closed his eyes, and after a couple of minutes, they rolled over so he was on the bottom. Joan could have watched the two of them neck for hours, except Lane finally pulled away and sat up. He made a beckoning motion toward her with one hand.

She stood up on wobbly legs, crossed three quarters of the distance, then dropped to her knees a foot or so away from them. As she came closer, Lane tugged Roger’s shirttails up and let both hands dip down under his waistband as he undressed him. Roger sighed out a grateful noise, eyes still closed.

Lane met her eyes again, his hands stilling on Roger’s bare stomach, like he was afraid to make a wrong move.

“That’s good, honey.” Joan moved closer, put a palm on Roger’s hip for balance as she leaned in to kiss Lane, easy, brief. “Keep going.”

Lane nodded gravely, and as he glanced down at Roger, really studied him, an unguarded softness crept over his face. Like he couldn’t believe how good this actually was, or how good it would be with all of them together. Joan didn’t say anything, just watched as Lane moved forward on his knees, laid his body over Roger’s again, and got one thigh between both of his—clearly angling for Roger to thrust against it.

“All friction?” Lane asked, voice husky.

Roger groaned out a _yeah_. “Uh huh. Just—slow. Not too soon.”

She placed one hand on each of their shoulders in silent encouragement. _Go on. That’s good._

“All right.” 

Lane ducked down to nip at Roger’s tensed jaw, and Joan sighed as Roger squinted his eyes open to smirk lazily in her direction.

She grinned at him, and bent down to kiss Lane’s bare shoulder, running her hands down his broad chest and copping a feel while she was there, brushing the pads of her thumbs over his nipples. He let out a soft sigh at the touch, and then—

“Well, hiya, sailor.” Roger chuckled, and pushed his hips against Lane’s. “Joanie, he likes that.”

“Hmm. I thought so.”

Lane pulled back, and sat up onto his knees; Joan didn’t think, just leaned forward, kissing him blindly until he moaned into her mouth. When she pulled away, he was panting hard.

“Shit.” Roger sounded dazed, watching them. “You’re getting me worked up.”

“We’ll do more than that.”

Joan watched in shock as Lane lay back down beside Roger and kissed him just as passionately, his hands moving into Roger’s hair, tugging at it, his hips grinding down against Roger’s and his hand sliding under Roger’s shorts.

Roger let out a breathless laugh, punch-drunk.

“Oh, sweetheart, it’s so damn good—”

“Dirty boy.” Lane moved his hand faster. His voice was a whisper. “That’s what you like, isn’t it?”

Roger groaned out a noise that meant _yes_. “That’s it. Keep going, just like—”

Wordlessly, Joan reached out and closed her hand around Lane’s, rubbing her thumb against his knuckles to get him to slow things down; he glanced over in surprise, and then nodded, once, letting her set the pace. Smoothly, Joan guided their hands up to the head of Roger’s cock, nudged Lane’s index finger with one fingertip so he knew exactly where to caress, how to drive Roger insane in seconds.

On an impulse, she squeezed Lane’s hand on the downstroke, barely enough pressure to be a twitch; he followed suit and tightened his grip on Roger’s cock, just a little, enough to twinge but not hurt.

“Holy shit.” A ragged, desperate moan. “Wh—where’d you learn how to—”

Lane squeezed Roger’s cock again with a fond sort of snort, meaning shut the hell up. As their joined hands pumped up and down, up and down, faster and faster, Roger got a little dazed; Joan loved watching him when he got strung out like this. She knew the minute he was past the point of no return, because he couldn’t even put two words together. All he could do was shiver and thrust and gasp, watching the two of them with half-open eyes.

“Gonna co—oh, shit—”

He spurted out over their joined hands; Lane made a surprised noise, and cast a delighted look at Joan, eyes shining with mischief.

She grinned, and leaned down to kiss Lane’s ear, balancing her chin in the crook of his shoulder as they touched Roger through it. After a few seconds, Lane teased milky fingers over Roger’s slick head until Roger whimpered and flung a hand out towards Lane’s arm.

“’S okay. ‘M okay.” A huge exhale. “You did good, sweetheart.”

Lane chuckled, and ducked his head, clearly still shy about the whole thing. Joan just winked at Roger.

“I thought I was sweetheart.”

“Nah. C’mere, baby.” Roger flung out an arm, like he was offering her a hug even though he didn’t bother to peel himself up from the floor. “I’ll make it up to you real quick.”

 

**

           

A few days later, Lane was sitting on the sofa, leafing through an issue of _Reader’s Digest_ when Roger sailed into the room and flung himself down onto the other end of the couch.

“I’m bored. What are you doing?”

“Some chaps got stranded on a mountainside,” Lane said absently, and flipped to the next page. “Not much of a read, to be honest.”

Mostly about the walking and the bugs, less about the endurance of the human condition. Lane had thought the trek was going to involve more derring-do, but instead it had been about how none of the idiots knew how to read a field map.

“Huh.” Roger leaned back into the leather, and got quiet again. Lane didn’t think much about the silence until he felt Roger’s eyes lingering on him, as if he were being carefully watched. The prickling feeling sent heat rushing into Lane’s face.

“You’re staring.”

“Caught.” Roger didn’t even seem embarrassed. “Hey. You want me to blow you?”

Lane glanced over, raised a skeptical eyebrow. “What.”

“Been wanting to try it, that’s all.”

“Oh.” Lane cleared his throat, not sure how to say _yes, absolutely_ to such a bald-faced request. Now that it was out in the open, it did seem like a good idea. “Erm. If—if you don’t mind.”

He put his magazine on the table, undid his belt and zipper, and moved to pull himself free of his pants, but Roger had already knelt down between his spread legs, and stopped him from moving.

“Here, I got a better plan. Get everything off before we start.”

Before long, Lane was sitting there in nothing but his t-shirt, with his trousers and y-fronts bunched around his ankles and Roger’s hands resting on the top of his thighs.

“Okay if we take it slow?”

“Hm? Course.” Lane was half-listening, pleasantly anticipating any touch, but for once, Roger’s patience seemed to have infinite limits. Instead of sucking Lane into his mouth, or even taking him in hand, Roger drizzled oil onto his palms using a small bottle he produced from his pocket, and briskly rubbed them together, the obscene sound echoing through the room.

When Roger met Lane’s eyes again, he winked. “Give you a little rubdown, first. Just tell me if I’m falling flat.”

“Oh, for god’s sake.” Lane was about to make some snippy comment, but when Roger ran two slick hands up his thighs, the remark died on his lips. After a few minutes of being massaged, he’d practically melted into the sofa as Roger methodically touched everything but Lane’s cock. His hands rubbed across Lane’s hips, stomach, thighs, and between them.

When one of Roger’s fingers caressed up past Lane’s sack, gently stroking between his buttocks, Lane shivered and jumped at the touch.

Roger stopped moving. “You okay?”

Lane tried to calm his breathing. “What? Erm. Yes.”

“Want me to keep going?”

“Mm.”

It did feel nice, if a little strange. Lane’s stomach clenched with eagerness as Roger’s hand continued to stroke upwards. When Roger’s fingertips caressed over the tight ring of muscle on Lane’s backside, Lane squirmed and moaned so loudly it surprised both of them.

“Good?” Roger breathed.

“Y-yeah.”

Suddenly, Roger pulled his hand away. Lane nearly protested the loss, but when he glanced down, he saw Roger was slicking up his hand again.

“First time I learned this was a thing, I was thirty, and getting a physical.” Roger leaned forward and took Lane’s hips in both hands, indicating he should scoot further down the sofa. Lane moved down until he felt cold air on his backside.

“Charming,” he grumbled. He’d never found medical examinations arousing, even as a boy. It had just been another terrifying thing to add to the list.

Roger just chuckled, and began to touch him again, rubbing his index finger around and around Lane’s entrance, and then pushing the tip of that finger inside, just slightly, only enough to stretch him open.

Pleasure rocketed through Lane’s body in a jolt, and wiped his mind blank.

“Ah!”

“All right?”

Past the point of speech, Lane bucked his hips up with a whimper, eyes fluttering closed; carefully, Roger slid his finger the rest of the way in.

“Doc barely even touched me. Just did this.”

Slowly, Roger crooked his index finger up and forward, curling it against a little sensitive bulge inside Lane’s body and rubbing this with the pad of one finger, over and over. Lane’s hips jerked forward without warning, and he moaned so loudly that the hoarse cry echoed all the way down the hall.

“Gets you real wet, right? Feels like you might come?”

Lane’s mouth fell open, and he nodded yes, wordless.

Roger let out a soft laugh. “It’s supposed to feel this good.”

He kept stroking his finger inside Lane, light teasing touches. When he added a second, stretching him so pleasurably it was breathtaking, Lane sucked in a shuddering breath, his body rippling with desire, and gripped the armrest as well as the side of a sofa cushion in both fists.

“Doesn’t take long,” Roger whispered. Lane glanced down, mouth open, and realized that his cock was dripping everywhere. _He was about to come and he wasn’t even fully hard._ “Even the cute nurse saw me, that time. Shot all over the table, and then I had to jerk off again, soon as they left the room. Two loads, no waiting.”

The razor’s-edge feeling intensified to a breaking point. Lane whimpered, and suddenly went rigid, thrusting up with a groan as Roger kept pumping his fingers inside him—but he didn’t spurt yet. It wasn’t over.

“Juh—Jesus _Christ!_ ”

Roger didn’t stop his caresses, not even when Lane was close to being overstimulated; as soon as the first wave passed, Roger leaned down, licked a long stripe up the underside of Lane’s cock, and watched in clear satisfaction as Lane got instantly, painfully erect. The head of his cock flushed an angry red, and then turned purple, twitching up in desperation, aching to be touched. Roger just grinned, and promptly sucked it into his mouth with a pleased snort.

Lane choked on a moan as all his nerve endings sparked to life at once. Roger’s lips were—incredible—and as one hand slowly pumped up and down the base of Lane’s cock, the other stayed inside him, and kept massaging Lane’s prostate with wickedly deft fingers.

Completely overcome, trembling uncontrollably and gasping for breath, Lane had no idea whether to thrust back against Roger’s slick fingers or forward into his sinfully wet hot mouth. His hips stuttered and bucked uselessly, no rhythm at all, and before Lane could form a thought beyond _oh god fuck more_ , Roger thrust his fingers up against Lane’s prostate, firm and insistent. Lane yelped, and came so hard he nearly passed out, nearly sobbing at the sweet taut suction of Roger’s mouth as Roger drank him all down.

After a minute, he sagged back against the sofa with a grateful noise, still panting as he came down from the high of sensation.

“That—that was—”

Roger looked very pleased with himself as he withdrew his hands and took a couple of tissues from the nearby box, wiping off his fingers. “Not bad, right?”

Not bad? Lane grabbed the man by the shirtfront and pulled him up into a searing kiss. His cock gave one last glorious twitch as Roger let out a surprised moan against his mouth.

“Amazing,” Lane murmured as he pulled away, and mouthed his way down Roger’s neck before biting and sucking at his throat, the way Lane knew he liked. Roger ground against him with an inarticulate noise. “Your turn.”

 

**

 

Joan was enjoying a glass of wine and a cigarette on the porch when Lane and Roger joined her. Roger rubbed her shoulder and upper back with one hand on the way to his chair, while Lane dropped a kiss into her hair with a content humming noise. When he moved away, she caught the telltale scent of musk and sweat.

“Hi.” Her mouth turned up into a wry smile. “You two seem relaxed.”

“Very,” Lane informed her with a grin. The way he was twinkling, plus the disheveled state of his clothes, told her that he’d definitely just had sex.

Roger drove to the point. “You doing anything tomorrow night, Red?”

Joan’s brow creased as she considered this. She ignored the swooping feeling in her stomach that told her this was good news. “I don’t think I have plans, no.”

“Well.” Lane and Roger exchanged a significant look. “If you’d like to, Roger and I had a few ideas about how the three of us might spend some time.”

“Oh, really?” Joan’s smile widened into a smirk.

“Yep.” Roger tapped Lane’s knee with one hand. Joan watched, fascinated, as this casual, brotherly touch turned into an intimate caress, with Roger’s fingernails trailing briefly over the top of Lane’s kneecap before he pulled his hand away. She also saw the way Lane’s eyes dilated, and then fluttered, once, like he had to concentrate to keep from tackling the other man to the ground and screwing him senseless. “Anyway. You up for some fun?”

Joan felt heat rush through her entire body. “Absolutely.”

“Great.”


	3. Chapter 3

**JULY**

 

 

Sitting naked on the edge of the bed, Lane could hear Roger snickering all the way in the toilet, his laughs punctured only by the intermittent, metallic clink of buckles being fastened.

“Who the hell designed this, MC Escher?” Another giggle burst out of Roger. “Come on, take pity on me, Red. I can’t see a goddamn thing with this blindfold.”

“Roger, it’s supposed to be a surprise.” Joan made an amused noise, as another metallic clink echoed around the walls. “And I know you already peeked, so don’t play dumb.”

“No, I didn’t!” Roger protested, just as Lane called out:

“Yes, he has!”

“Go back out there.” Joan said in a loud, playful voice. “Sit with Lane on the bed.”

“Fine.” Roger huffed, as if waiting for sex for a minute longer was the world’s worst inconvenience, “but if I concuss myself on the doorframe on the way out, it’s your fault.”

She just laughed. Roger sauntered out of the bathroom, as confident without clothes as he was in his Savile Row suits, and yanked the rolled silk scarf off of his head. The sides and back of his hair crackled with static and waved in the air as he sat down next to Lane and shot him a devious grin.

“That thing had more hardware than the lunar lander.”

Anticipation pooled in Lane’s stomach, but he forced himself to stay calm. It could be anything. New garters. A different outfit, perhaps some sort of ridiculous thing you could buy in the pervert shops. Rubber or cheap fake leather.

Abruptly, the light clicked off in the master bath, and Joan emerged in her silk robe, shooting the two of them a frankly obscene smirk as she carefully walked forward. One hand toyed with the end of the silk tie that hid her beautiful body from their appreciative gazes—although there was something about the way the fabric draped across her body, and the purposeful way she walked, that made Lane tense with excitement. Something was different. Something good.

“Can we see you?” he asked softly.

She wasted no time. Deftly, she undid the tie of her robe, peeled the silk from her shoulders and let it puddle around her bare feet.

Lane’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. A proud pink flush rose in her cheeks as she stared back at him, that same little smirk still living at the corners of her full-lipped mouth as she put both hands on her hips.

She wore a satin black bra, conical in shape, along with a black leather harness that fastened near the small of her back. It featured several smaller straps that at first glance seemed to fit like garters, or some kind of girdle briefs, with two thin straps crossing around the cleft of her bum and another that began just near her quim and linked to the main part of the harness.

Extending from the front of this contraption, through a small hole in the leather, was a long, curved, magenta-pink cock.

“Fuck me,” Roger whispered after a long moment of silence.

Lane knew how Roger would look: hard and impatient with his mouth hanging open, but he couldn’t confirm this because he couldn’t tear his eyes away from Joan. He could hardly draw breath into his lungs.

“I don’t know how you walk around with these things,” she said softly as she searched their astonished faces, clearly trying to lighten the mood.

“Y—you look—” all Lane could hear was the loud rush of blood roaring in his ears “—like Barbarella.”

But better. So much better.

“Do I?” Joan asked lightly. With her right hand, she encircled finger and thumb and slowly caressed the head of the bright pink cock that lay nestled against her thigh, held firmly in place by the leather harness and the straps that criscrossed her abdomen and rump.

“Joan, I—” Lane swallowed. A throbbing ache pulsed between his legs, made him nearly dizzy with excitement. “Have to touch it.”

“You can.”

She sauntered over, very slowly. As he reached one hand out to touch this strange new part of her, he hesitated before his fingers could make contact with the tapered end.

“What does it feel like?” he whispered.

“Heavy,” she answered in a wry voice, as his palm touched what turned out to be a type of soft rubber; it was firm and pliable all at once. Lane gasped as he brushed one finger down the side of this girthy cock, and his breath came faster. Oh, my god. Imagine having that inside of you. Was this what women felt like, every time they had a man? This anticipation? This anxiety?

“But it feels good?”

His fingers brushed the base of it, moving the cock to the left and then to the right as he searched out the soft contours of her body underneath the fabric of the harness, as if he was just helping her dress.

She sighed out a long breath, as his fingers hit some kind of hard, round button. On closer inspection, it seemed to be positioned just near her clitoris.

“Makes me tingle.” She moved his hand back to her cock. Her eyes were dark and intent when she met his gaze. “Wonder what it’ll feel like when I fuck.”

“Red.” Next to Lane, Roger’s face was pink and he was already breathing heavy, transfixed by the pink phallus hanging between her legs. “Red, baby, can you—can you—”

“Shhh.” She reached out, and caressed Roger’s face; he nuzzled into her palm with a little sigh, eyes fluttering closed. “Want me to fuck you?”

Lane’s cock twitched hard at the words as he imagined it; Joan bending Roger over the bed and having her wicked way with him, making him whine—making him beg. Oh, god. It would be incredible.

“Yeah.” Roger palmed himself in one hand, clearly desperate to start.

Joan cocked a sharp eyebrow in Lane’s direction; he had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. If she weren’t playing a character, he thought she might have rolled her eyes at the sheer impertinence.

“All right,” she said briskly, and crossed back over to where her robe lay puddled on the floor. From the pocket, she produced two leather pieces, both studded with snaps, and brought them over to the bed. “Put these on first.”

They were cock rings. Lane couldn’t help being impressed. Of course Joan would have thought of everything. He got his fastened from root to sack without much trouble, and inhaled deeply as the sensation of being cinched sent a shiver through his body. When he looked over, he noticed Roger was still fumbling with the last snap; his hands were clumsy with arousal, almost shaking.

“Here.” Lane scooted closer, and reached over Roger’s left thigh to get the thing fastened. When Lane’s hands brushed taut hot skin as he pulled away, Roger made a keening noise.

Lane stroked him a couple more times, just to be mischievous, and Roger’s head lolled backwards with a groan.

“Okay.” Joan put a hand on Lane’s arm. “You’ll be on the bed on your back.” And then she looked at Roger, and her tongue darted out to wet her lips.

“Roger, you’ll face him, on your hands and knees.”

They quickly got into their respective positions; Lane peeled the comforter off the bed in an attempt to keep everyone from overheating, and settled in with his head on the pillow and his legs kicked straight out, slightly spread. Roger followed next, clambering up and carefully putting his knees on either side of Lane’s thighs, so that his wrists brushed Lane’s sides, and his head was nearly level with Lane’s sternum.

They locked gazes; Roger let out a wheeze of a laugh as he glanced up and down Lane’s body.

“Gotta say, I like the view.”

Lane reached between them and tweaked one of Roger’s nipples in answer; Roger dipped his head with a groan.

“Shit. You cocktease.”

Joan stepped up behind Roger, and rested her right hand on the small of his back. Her left hand was already slick with oil, and with a devious grin, she traced the pad of one thumb down the cleft of Roger’s backside. Lane couldn’t see the movement of her fingers, but he knew when she’d hit her target, because her brow furrowed slightly, then relaxed, and Roger’s body jerked as taut as if he’d been stung by a cattle prod.

“You want me to stop?” she asked lightly.

“Nnngh.” Roger’s breath quickened. “Don’t you dare.”

Joan resumed her movements, and Roger moaned again, his hands tightening against the once-crisp sheets.

“Ohhhh, shit, Joanie. Joanie, that feels so good.”

Lane’s free hand found his own cock, and he stroked himself slowly as he watched the pure bliss on Roger’s face, and the intent, wicked light in Joan’s eyes. Judging by the way she was biting her lip, she was already wet and ready—except this time she was going to be the one to push inside, thrust and thrust until she spent herself—

Roger groaned again, and a tremor passed through him. The bed began to creak, just slightly, just enough for Lane to feel the rhythm she’d set.

“Tell Lane what I’m doing,” Joan’s voice was so matter-of-fact it was like she was only finishing some paperwork. But Lane heard the roughness in her voice and _knew_ —knew in his bones—that she adored this.

“Holy shit.” Roger wrenched his head up with a whine, and met Lane’s eyes. His mouth worked soundlessly for a moment. “She—two—two fingers.”

“Oh,” Lane gasped as he imagined it, and stroked himself a little faster.

Roger was thrusting his hips a little, now; his body taut with need. Even with the distance between them, Lane heard the obscene wet sound of Joan’s deft fingers as they thrust in and out.

“Red,” Roger choked out after another minute of this. He rested his forehead against Lane’s chest. “Jesus. I n—need—”

A sharp, sucking sound, and Roger’s entire body trembled at the loss.

“Tell Lane what you need, baby.”

Lane could see what she was doing—somewhat, anyway. She’d slicked up her other hand and had reached between Roger’s legs so she could lightly toy with his nearly-purple cock.

“Oh, god, that—Lane—s-she—”

Lane suddenly wanted very much to kiss him, and so he touched Roger’s face to get him to look up. “Here. Give us a kiss. Show me.”

Roger moaned, crawled up the mattress, and bent his head for a searing kiss. He bit at Lane’s mouth and used his tongue and kept pushing his hips into Lane’s leg, with Joan’s hand still working his cock.

“Ah!” Roger pulled away, panting, and pressed his forehead into Lane’s shoulder. “Juh—Joanie, just fuck me. I’m ready, just please—”

Over Roger’s right shoulder, Lane watched as Joan stepped to one side, drizzled a puddle of oil into her hand, and then, keeping her eyes fixed on Lane’s face, slowly began to rub it all over her cock, slicking it up until the rubber gleamed wet in the low light.

“Oh, my god,” Lane whispered, and then decided he should reassure Roger. “She—she’s getting it ready. Nice and—and slick for you.”

Roger ground his hips into Lane’s with a desperate noise, and without thinking, Lane reached between them, angled his hips up a little, and grasped the heads of both their cocks in one hand, pumping them both together. Roger stiffened and hissed at the contact; a jolt of arousal ran through Lane’s body at the sound. His eyes were still fixed on Joan, who seemed transfixed by the movement of her hand, by how seamlessly the prosthetic fit against her body.

“Like this,” Lane tried to mimic her pace with his own hand as best he could. Roger grunted and bucked into the touch, and by the time Joan was ready, walking up to his backside, the pair of them were dripping with need.

“Roger,” she said softly, as she laid her hand on the small of his back again. He scrabbled back up onto his knees. “I’m going to fuck you sideways.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Can’t wai—ah! Mmph.”

Joan had both hands on Roger’s hips, now, clearly easing herself in; eyes wide and dark. Roger’s body tensed and shuddered as she slowly pushed inside; he pressed his forehead against Lane’s shoulder again, and grunted out a long, low sound, like it took significant effort to hold himself back.

“Oh, fuck, fuck, Joanie, fuck—”

“Need a minute?” Joan asked, breathless, breaking the spell a little, but Roger didn’t seem to hear the change in her voice, just whined, and shook his head no.

“Wants to come,” Lane observed fondly, and pushed a bit of Roger’s hair behind one ear. Roger shuddered again as Lane’s fingertips grazed his earlobe. “Don’t you, darling?”

“Uh—uh huh.”

Joan rolled her hips in light, easy strokes for a minute or so, just testing angles, Lane guessed, but the minute she pulled back, and then slid home, Roger keened out a high, gibberish noise. His hands flexed uselessly against the sheets and a full-body shiver passed through him.

“Jesus fuck,” he rasped.

Joan moaned, and repeated the motion. This time, she draped her body over Roger’s back and wrapped an arm around his waist so she could touch him as she thrust inside.

“Move back a little,” she told Roger, who did, and groaned.

Lane began to tug at his own cock again, desperate to get off. Roger’s face was still braced against his shoulder, hot mouth open and wet as he babbled into Lane’s skin, and Joan’s cock kept thrusting deep inside Roger’s body. Her hips pistoned so fast and hard that the headboard began to clatter against the wall in rhythm. Under them, the bedsprings shook from the force of her thrusts.

“FuckJoanieplease.” Roger could hardly string the words together. “You—you—”

“That’s right.” Her voice was low and electric, and a fine sheen of sweat had beaded up on her face. She slid all the way in, and suddenly stopped moving; Roger’s face screwed into an expression of knife-edged bliss. “Tell me.”

“Mmph! Oh. W—want—hm!”

“So lovely this way,” Lane murmured, and put one hand to the back of Roger’s neck, stroking his fingers across the short hair at the back of Roger’s scalp.

_When you beg. I like having you beg._

“Red.” It was almost a wail, even muffled. “Uhwanna come. Wannacomejust—hah! Baby—baby, pl—please.”

“You’re doing so well, darling,” Lane murmured into Roger’s ear, as he and Joan locked eyes. She stroked Roger’s hips with both hands as Roger gasped out two harsh breaths. “Just a little longer.”

Wordlessly, Joan reached around Roger’s waist with both hands, grabbed his cock, and divested him of the ring, lightly massaging his balls before stroking upwards with the fingertips of her thumb and forefingers. Lane watched, slack-jawed, as Roger snorted and shuddered in her hold, arching up into her front like a stallion in heat before pitching forward onto his elbows again.

“Lane needs something, too,” Joan said, cocking her head to one side as if she were eyeing up a pair of disobedient schoolboys. A shiver pooled at the base of Lane’s spine at the expression. “Roger, why don’t you fix that?”

Within seconds, Roger fastened his mouth to Lane’s nipple.

“Mmph!” Lane arched his back as a sudden pulse of arousal left his head spinning. “My god!”

Roger just groaned; Joan adjusted her stance, pulled back, and thrust into him again—and this time Lane could feel everything. The way Roger’s breath caught and fogged over his flushed skin whenever she bottomed out; the way Roger teased his tongue over Lane’s pebbled nipple every time Joan rolled her hips back, absolutely no finesse, just pure animal instinct, laving and biting deep marks into his chest and abdomen.

“Jesus,” Joan gasped on another thrust in. “You look—you look—”

Lane couldn’t follow the thread; he had no words. All he could do was wrap his arms around Roger’s shoulders and hang on.

“Ah!” Joan’s eyes slid shut as she sped up her movements. Lane saw her hands tighten around Roger’s sides, and wondered how close she was. “God, I love doing this. I love being inside you.”

“Hnnngh!” Roger was panting like an animal, now, and shivering uncontrollably. Although he still had most of his weight balanced on his elbows, his chest pressed against Lane’s belly as he squirmed and bucked against the friction of Joan’s cock. “Ah—mmm—”

“Come on, darling,” Lane touched Roger’s face again, dragging a fingertip up and over the shell of his ear, and then playing with the earlobe; he was so sensitive there, so easy. “Almost there. Almost there.”

Joan’s face was set in breathless determination; on the next thrust in, she moved one hand behind her. Lane heard the metallic clink of a buckle as she pulled out, and when she slid home this time—

“Ah! Ah! _Fuck! Red!”_

Roger came in long, shivering pulses; several hot thick stripes coated Lane’s thigh just before Roger collapsed on top of him, still riding out his orgasm, squirming and sobbing and—Lane sucked in a sudden breath as Roger bucked up against his still-erect cock—oh, he couldn’t wait much longer.

After a minute, once Roger got some of his wits back, Joan pulled out with a barely-audible _pop_ , which caused him to whimper and shiver. He rolled onto his side with a sigh, still shaking, as the last of the tremors faded.

Lane leaned right and pressed a kiss into Roger’s left shoulder, enjoying the content sigh this elicited. When he rolled back over, Joan met his eyes, and began to undo the straps of her harness.

“No.” Lane reached out for her immediately. “Leave it on.”

She crawled up toward his left side; when she got to him, Lane put one hand on the base of the harness, where her cock met the rest of the contraption, and snaked the other between her legs, groaning in delight when he felt how soaked she was, and again when she moaned out an appreciative noise.

“Feels so good,” Lane said again as she straddled his hips and made quick work of the cock ring. Next to them, Roger was watching intently.

When Lane got inside her—felt her ridiculous pink cock graze his stomach—he nearly came on the spot, and had to hold her hips in place for several seconds.

“Oh, god. That—just—there.”

“Holy shit,” said Roger. “He’s ready to pop.”

Sitting with her hips now flush against Lane’s stomach, Joan’s eyes were the size of saucers.

“I—I like it,” Lane managed to rasp, and took her cock in hand, pumping it a couple of times and making sure the base of it pressed against her body on the downstroke. She canted her hips forward with a sharp inhale. “Your cock.”

“Yeah,” she groaned—encouragement, a reply.

“Mm.” Lane kept moving his hand. “Loved when you were—when you fucked him into the bed. Feeling your cock in—inside him. Wanted to see it. I’d watch your cock go in and—and—”

“Jesus Christ.” A ragged groan to his right. “Lane.”

Joan gasped out a wordless breath as she moved faster. Lane’s hand was still on her cock and the other one sought out what was under the harness; when he found that little slippery nub with two fingers, gooseflesh prickled over her entire body, and she moaned so loudly he was sure the entire neighborhood heard it.

“Fuck.” Roger was touching himself again; the desperate slide of flesh on flesh meant he was trying to catch up. “I might—one more—”

“Yeah,” Joan whispered, twice. “Oh. Almost—”

Lane’s eyes rolled back in his head from the sheer stimulation: watching her neon cock slap his stomach as she rode him to sheer breathlessness, how her long hair fell around her bouncing breasts, and how a distant, unfocused look developed in her eyes as she chased the zenith to the top.

“Nnngh!” The words tore from her throat like a screech. “Ah!”

Joan’s nails scraped his chest as she bucked against him and all her muscles locked in release; inside, she squeezed around him so tightly that Lane had to look away from her, and his head lolled to the right.

Panting, Lane wrenched his eyes open and saw Roger gasping out harsh, hot breaths as he quickened his strokes. Roger caught his gaze, moved forward in a tangle of limbs, and captured Lane’s mouth, kissing him wet and dirty; Lane groaned, pistoned his hips, and felt the punishing tug of sensation start deep in his taut stomach. He came with Joan collapsed on top of him and Roger’s mouth crushing his.

When Lane came back to his senses, it happened gradually and over the course of several minutes, as if emerging from a vivid dream. His right arm was flung up across his pillow while the other was down by his side.

First, he felt the pleasant weight of Joan, who was still draped over him like a heavy blanket, with her right hand idly brushing against the nape of his neck and the other stretched left across the damp, rumpled sheets. They were still joined, still immersed in the last twinges of release. Her knees and legs—barely supporting her at this point—splayed out next to his hips, and her sticky cock—that glorious, strange thing—was still pressed against his lower belly.

Next, Lane felt a pleasant exhale of cool air somewhere near the intersection of chest and armpit, and realized that this was Roger—or more precisely, Roger’s nose. His face was nestled into Lane’s side, and his hips were positioned a few inches from Joan’s left calf. Joan’s hand was on his left hip. Must have been why Lane moved the arm, in the end—to make room.

“Everyone, erm, comfortable?” Lane asked quietly.

Roger gave a little _hmph_ of laughter. “Hell yes.”

Joan made a similar, wordless noise.

“Good.”

Lane let out a long breath. He wanted to tell them how wonderful the entire night had been, but didn’t think he could put it into the right words. What could he possibly tell them that they hadn’t already discovered? How could he ever convey how much he treasured this kind of bond? This—boundless intimacy with two lovers who had helped him understand a part of himself he never knew existed? And how did they both seem to know this was precisely what he’d needed?

Roger propped himself up with one elbow and tapped on Lane’s side using his other palm, not unkindly. “Hey. I can practically hear the wheels grinding up there. What’s going on?”

“Well—I—I am thinking.” Lane sighed, and decided it was simpler not to say anything. “Why, did you need something?”

“Me? Nah,” Roger said. His thumb caressed Lane’s ribs before he pulled back. “Relax. We’re not going anywhere.”

With that, he promptly lay back down, and closed his eyes, roughly in the same position as before.

Joan was silent, ostensibly dozing, but Lane could feel a telltale muscle jumping in her jaw, and couldn’t help pointing this out to the room.

“Darling, I can _feel_ you smiling.”

“No, you can’t,” she said, but her smile widened, and she stroked her fingertips down the inside of his left forearm as she spoke.

“Gotta watch that one,” Roger said through a small yawn. He was probably fighting sleep by now. “Red’s tricky.”

“No, I’m not,” she mumbled, voice practically muffled by Lane’s ribs, but Lane was too comfortable to look and see how Roger reacted this time, and in the end, just closed his eyes.

 

**

 

They were woken by the jangling telephone on Joan’s bedside table.

Lane still hated having a phone in the bedroom, and hated it even more at this precise second because it woke him from a very pleasant fantasy. But Joan didn’t miss a beat, just fumbled for the receiver in all her disheveled glory, and by the time she’d put it to her ear, she sounded as alert as if she’d been up for hours. Definitely not as if she were just waking up from the fuck of a lifetime, and still wearing a strap-on cock.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Mom!” A loud, high-pitched yelp on the other end told Lane it was Kevin. Was it the beginning of the month already? The lad was allowed to call once a month, just to check in. “You’ll never _believe_ what happened today!”

“It’s ten A.M.,” Joan said with a snort as she consulted the clock. Although her voice was light, she seemed clueless as to what to do with her hands, or how to sit, given everything. “How long have you been awake?”

“Only all night!” Kevin let out a giggle. “Okay. So this is, like, crazy, Mom. So last night Justin and Ben and Max and I were all down by the lake with the rest of our group, and Justin said that Julie H. was really—“

Lane’s attention wandered, so he leaned over and poked Roger in the side to get him to stir, while Joan listened to Kevin’s story and made all the appropriate noises of interest at the right times.

“Wow. Your counselors really must have been thrilled.” Joan made a funny face at Lane, who grinned. Story must have finally ended, whatever it was. “Okay, well, Lane’s right here, so let me put him on.” A pause. “I love you, sweetie. Bye bye.”

She handed the receiver to him. Lane took it and settled back against the headboard just as Joan got out of bed and stretched her arms up toward the ceiling.

“Hello there.”

“Hi, Lane! Guess what?”

“What?”

“Don’t tell Mom. I kinda have a girlfriend now.”

Lane made a shocked noise. “Well, you never have!”

“Yeah, I do!” Kevin launched into the story at once.

As Lane listened, he also watched with keen interest as Joan unbuckled herself: first getting the strap that went around her back, then the one nestled in the apex of her thighs, and then she was free, and let the whole harness slide down her legs before stepping out of each loop, one by one.

“….And her parents live in Michigan! I mean, all the way at the top of the map, like, really, _really_ far; she drew it for me once. Hey, how far is Michigan from here?”

“From camp?” Lane asked with a grin, as Joan swept her robe from the floor, put it on, and went into the master bath carrying the harness before closing the door behind her. Inside, the tap in the bathtub cut on with a gush; she must be washing up. “Many, many hours, I’d assume. Why? Are you planning to go there?”

Next to him, Roger was finally upright, and hunched over the end table, in the middle of lighting a cigarette.

“Obviously, when we get married, I _have_ to go there,” Kevin said in an exasperated voice. “I gave her a ring out of the vending machine, and we slept in the same bed once, and those are the _rules_.” He made a thoughtful noise. “But I can’t tell Mom yet. I gotta figure out how to mail all my action figures first.”

Lane had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. My god. If things kept on like this, the little fellow was going to be utterly heartbroken by August.

“Oh, well, that’s quite serious, then. Here.” He tapped Roger on the arm. “Your uncle’s popped by, and he wants to say hello. Tell him just what you told me. What? No, I wouldn’t worry. Think you’ll get it all sorted out by the end of summer. All right. I love you. Here’s your uncle.”

He handed Roger the receiver.

“Hey, kid. What’s shakin’?” Pause. No shit. Who’s the lucky girl?”

Lane slumped back into the pillows, not wanting to get up yet.

“Well, if you gotta go to Reno for a quickie divorce, don’t worry; I’ll fly you out in style.” Pause. Roger scrubbed a hand across his stubbled cheek. “First class, kiddo.” Another pause. “Oh, you mean, what’s in Reno?”

Roger mouthed the word _fuck_ under his breath. Lane snickered, and got a smack on the arm for his trouble.

“Uh. Well. It’s kinda like Vegas. You know, with the big hotels and the casinos? People go there, they play slots, they get married. Then they get divorced. Everything happens fast out there. The armadillos look like they’re flying.”

Across the room, someone cleared her throat. Lane glanced over to see Joan, face pink from the shower and now wrapped in her silk robe with a towel swept up over her hair, standing with her arms folded across her chest.

“Hey, listen, the boss is giving me the stink-eye, so I gotta go.” Another pause. “Yeah, I love ya, ya little monster. Go find those lake sharks.”

Once they hung up, Joan arched an imperious eyebrow in their direction.

“Really? You had to teach him about Reno?”

“I’ll make it up to you with some french toast,” Roger commented with a waggle of his eyebrows, and flung back the blankets. “Add some nutmeg to it, the way you always like.”

“Oh, little prince Sterling can operate a stove, can he?” Lane feigned shock. “Incredible.”

“Hey, can it, Lord Jokekiller, or you get zilch.”

Lane just snickered.

“Okay.” Joan tossed Roger’s shorts in his general direction. “Lead the way.”

 

**

           

A warm evening breeze brought a skiff of fallen dogwood blossoms sailing past the back porch and into the grassy yard; Lane ignored the wind in favor of handing Roger another drink.

Inside, Joan was luxuriating in a bubble bath, while he and Roger were sitting in a couple of battered lawn chairs, enjoying the pleasant evening, and indulging in cigars and whiskeys. Through the open screen door, music drifted out from the middle of the living room; the hi-fi was turned up to a station Joan had chosen shortly before departing for her bath. Mostly been playing Sinatra all evening.

Lane let out an absent, pleased sigh as a smooth, familiar voice crooned out from the crackling speakers.

_Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men have named you…_

Roger exhaled softly.

“One of the greats.”

“Mm.” Lane smiled as a happy memory drifted to the front of his mind. “Becca used to pretend she didn’t like him very much. And then I’d catch her mouthing all the words when no one else was looking.”

Roger’s gaze was fixed on the rippling branches of the willow tree; it stood just beyond the weak beam of light that currently illuminated a long patch of grass along the edge of the porch.

“Used to sing this every year on Mona's birthday.”

_Do you smile to tempt a lover, Mona Lisa?_

Lane took another sip of his whiskey, careful not to react. He could count on one hand the number of times Roger had mentioned his first wife in the past few months.

“Margaret was just a kid, at first. Would always roll her eyes, and pull the biggest faces, just like her mother. Daddy, don’t sing to Mommy. Don’t kiss Mommy. All that kind of stuff.” Roger’s eyes were distant. His voice was soft and warm. Lane had never heard him talk about anyone like this. “But Mona always laughed. Even after the divorce, I still did it. I used to do it over the phone.”

Questions hovered on the tip of Lane’s tongue. What was Mona like? How did you meet? What drew you to her? What made you get divorced? But he couldn’t ask a single one. All he could do was sit in silence as the radio continued to play.

_They just lie there...and they die there…_

“Turn it off,” Roger said gruffly.

Lane startled with the glass halfway to his lips. “What?”

Roger was already on his feet; without another word, he stalked away and slung the screen door open with such force that Lane expected it to rip out of its flimsy little tracks. As Roger stormed into the living room and up to the hi-fi, Lane could hear the other man swearing furiously under his breath, although he couldn’t catch all the details.

_Are you warm, are you real, Mona Li—_

Click.

Nothing.


	4. Chapter 4

**AUGUST**

 

 

In the end, Lane was too afraid to say the words out loud, so he wrote the sentiment out onto a little slip of paper swiped from Joan’s desk, forming the letters again and again until the handwriting looked less shaky, until each sweep of the ink brimmed with the confidence he couldn’t summon up in person.

The first line wasn’t very impressive. But the rest might work.

_Dear darling idiot: don’t get stuck on the train again today, as you know Joan hates it when you’re not at dinner. Otherwise, you’re free to do as you wish. Hope the day isn’t too awful. I love you very much. See you soon._

But was this enough? Did it make the man happy? Lane worried constantly about this; ever since the night Roger had talked to him about Mona – or rather, the night he’d talked around her. Lane still didn’t know why Roger held those cards so tightly to his chest, and inwardly, he thought it spoke to some deficiency on all their behalf. Perhaps they were letting him down in some way, if he couldn’t be honest with them about his past loves. Privately, Lane wondered if their arrangement would ever be enough for the man.

But he finally gathered his courage, and eventually slipped the note into Roger’s jacket pocket just after dinner, although the jacket had hung unused on the coatrack for two straight days.

That was all right. If Roger didn’t find it until the morning, or until the next day, then he would see it at some point, and that would be the end of it.

 

**

 

“Jesus. We’re already running late.”

Joanie was in a foul mood for a Saturday; Roger didn’t ask why, but as he pulled on the suit jacket hanging by the front door, she fixed him with a glare that said he’d better hurry the hell up before she left him behind.

As Roger checked the pockets for his wallet and keys, he felt a foreign scrap of paper in the right outer pocket. It was thick, like notebook paper or stationery.

“Huh,” he said as he pulled it out of his pocket, and unfolded it.

Five little words hit him straight in the gut. All he could do was stare.

“What are you doing?” Joan demanded as she adjusted her pocketbook on her arm. “Let’s go.”

“Ah,” Roger jerked a thumb toward the study in an attempt to pass this off as casual. “Hang on. I forgot I was supposed to make this phone call before noon.”

She pressed her free hand to the bridge of her nose, and let out a growl of annoyance. “Are you kidding?”

“I’m sorry, baby.” He pulled her hand away and kissed it; she still let him, even though he’d clearly pissed her off. “Go without me, if you want. Or if you feel like waiting in the car, just give me ten minutes.”

“Fine,” Joan huffed, and opened the front door. “Ten minutes. That’s it.”

“Joanie, you’re an angel,” said Roger, and carefully put the note back into his pocket. Once the door closed behind her, he didn’t even stop to peel his jacket off, just made a beeline for the study. When he walked inside, Lane was standing by one of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, squinting at the spines of the anthologies like he hadn’t already read them a billion times before.

God, he was such a pencil-necked geek.

But he was _Roger’s_ geek, and he was tender and funny, and _fuck_ , Roger wanted the man to know how much he meant to him. So he marched forward without saying another word.

Lane barely looked over from the books he was admiring. “Weren’t the two of you off to the—?”

Roger’s hands were on him before he could finish the sentence; he pulled Lane into him by the straps of his suspenders and kissed him so hard Lane gasped and shuddered against his mouth.

They ended up pressed against the bookshelves, with Roger pinning him in place, one hand tangled in the back of Lane’s hair and the other one palming the front of Lane’s trousers.

“Feel that,” Roger rasped out once he pulled back from another long kiss, as he unzipped Lane’s fly. Lane sucked in a shocked breath as Roger’s fingers closed over his wrist, and pulled Lane’s hand down to the front of his own pants. “Feel how much I want you, huh?”

“Oh,” Lane choked out, as Roger let go of his wrist and went after the prize; petted and pulled and stroked until Lane’s knees shook. “Oh—god.”

“You’re so good to me, sweetheart.” Roger couldn’t get over the cross-eyed delirium that passed across Lane’s face every time anyone talked dirty to him. “Leaving me little love notes, being so damn observant; I love seeing you like this. Touching you. Making you come.”

“Nnnnngh!” Lane’s knees were shaking and his back arched against the bookshelves. “Roger.”

“Shhh, it’s okay.” Roger moved his hand faster, felt his cock twitch when Lane yelped a little. “Let me use my mouth on you. I’ll make you feel good. Want to make you feel so good.”

“I lo—“ Lane was panting as Roger dropped down to his knees in front of him. “I love—oh, god, Roger, _yes._ ”

Couple of minutes and a deep throating later, Lane trembled as he came, falling backwards into the bookcase like a fighter on the ropes as his whole body went limp.

Satisfied, Roger wiped his mouth on the back of one hand, and slowly got to his feet. A twinge in his lower back made him wince a little, and step more carefully once he was upright. He could tell Lane was feeling self-conscious again, just from the way the guy spoke after he stood up and zipped up.

“I, erm. If you can’t—or don’t want to say it back—well, I don’t mind.”

“Hey.” Roger moved in close and kissed him again, gently this time. “Don’t do that. You know how I feel.”

“Yeah,” Lane whispered as Roger pulled back, not meeting Roger’s eyes.

“Cause I don’t do this with just anyone.”

“Well, with men, obviously.”

“Stop it. I’m serious.” Roger put a hand on Lane’s cheek, so Lane would be forced to look at him. “And I sure as hell aren’t gonna let you think that I don’t appreciate you, because that’s horseshit. Okay? It’s horseshit.”

“Oh.” Lane nodded in agreement a couple of times, the movement jerky and rough. “Erm. Me—me too.”

“Good man.” Roger grinned, stepped backwards, and tapped him in the arm with one gentle fist. “Anyway. Headed out. Sure you don’t want to come?”

“Thought I already did,” Lane said slyly.

“Ha! Seriously, though—”

Lane shook his head no.

“Well, all right. Suit yourself.”

Outside, as Roger climbed into the idling car, he had to surreptitiously adjust himself as he sat down and put his seatbelt on. Joanie could clearly tell that he was hard, because she glanced pointedly at his zipper, but she didn’t say a word until they were almost a block away.

“Everything okay?”

She must have suspected something was off, because she was staring at the road like she was hypnotized. He knew she didn’t have to watch that closely.

“Yeah.” Roger cleared his throat. “Sorry to make you wait.”

He wanted to tell her what happened, but the words were like marbles in his mouth. They rolled around and around on his tongue and almost choked him with their weight. Lane told him he loved him. When was the last time anyone had written Roger a note like that? The last time anyone felt the need to write it down? Hell, Joanie wasn’t a writer. If she loved you, she’d just tell you flat out, or do cute little things for you, or kiss you real soft and sweet. It was always obvious. The only other person who’d ever written him love letters was—

“Roger?”

“Yeah?” He ran a hand over his jaw, and glanced out the window, watching the woods roll by their window and trying not to choke up. Just breathe. Just breathe. “Uh. What’d we need from the store again?”

“List’s in my purse,” Joan told him, as they took a right hand turn.

 

**

 

A few nights later, Lane was back in the study, purposefully staring at the spine of the book in his hand; near the kitchen, raised voices got louder.

“Stop avoiding the question,” Joan shouted. “You’re being a prick!”

Something smashed against the floor, or perhaps a wall. The heavy _thump_ of a solid object hitting a flat surface made Lane wonder what she’d thrown this time.

“Yeah? Well, you sure weren’t complaining about that the other—”

“Oh, fuck you!”

Joan and Roger fought so rarely that at first, Lane honestly wasn’t sure if they were ever going to; their dynamic was so charged, and both of them were so opaque, that it was difficult to pinpoint the difference between one bad mood or one bad day and the beginnings of an apocalyptic fight.

They liked to take the piss out of each other on an hourly basis, but most of the time, any real irritation was hidden behind biting sarcasm or cool glances or clenched-teeth pleas made behind closed doors.

Lane had lost what little patience he had for those sorts of polite veneers. From the very beginning, he and Joan had bickered loudly and frequently about everything under the sun. Time-consuming, yes, and it had annoyed the bloody daylights out of him at first, but afterwards, the two of them usually had make up sex, or had time alone to cool off. When they inevitably circled back to address the elephant in the room, things were usually all right again. He suspected Joan and Roger had never learnt how to hash disagreements out in this manner; not properly, anyway, and so he was determined to stay well out of this one.

Kevin was due home in less than a week, and meanwhile, Roger had been a holy terror for four straight days, while Joan currently had the painters in.

It really wasn’t surprising that they’d all finally cracked under the stress.

“Well, then, just _go_ if you can’t even be honest with us. It isn’t my fault that you’re _wallowing in grief_ and you’re too chickenshit to talk about it!”

Oh, Christ. Lane jumped up from the sofa immediately, all neutrality forgotten. As he strode down the hallway, gathering speed, the roughness in Roger’s voice would have been audible even if the man hadn’t been bellowing.

“—don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”

“Oh, yeah?” Lane could see them now; Joan was standing in the kitchen doorway, red-faced, puncturing every sentence with a stab of her index finger as Roger stalked around one corner of the breakfast table; his mouth was contorted with rage. “Then let’s talk. You don’t go to the cemetery. You dodge Margaret’s calls, and you barely even say Mona’s name, for god’s sake! You were married for _twenty-two goddamn years!_ I even remember the anniversary: May twenty eighth nineteen forty—”

“Joan, stop it,” Lane said in a level voice, but she didn’t even pause. She didn’t even seem to hear him; her gaze was singularly focused on Roger.

“What’s wrong with you? Why are you still pretending you’re fine?”

“Shut up,” Roger barked, deep in his throat.

“No! Mona had a coronary, Roger, and she dropped dead. Just say it!”

“Joan, _stop!_ ” Lane demanded—and this time they both heard him; Joan’s furious gaze flicked to his and Roger whipped around with a jolt, as if he expected to get cold-cocked.

One glance at Roger’s face told Lane things were very, very bad. His skin had a greyish pallor and he was breathing heavily with his fists clenched at his sides and his face wrenched down toward the ground.

“Joanie, don’t you fucking say that to me,” Roger finally spat in a low voice, before he looked up. A visible twitch passed through his face. “Don’t _ever_ —”

And for the first time in living memory, Roger didn’t even finish his sentence, just snapped his mouth closed, stormed past Lane, and out of the house without another word, so quickly it was as if he was running. He didn’t even bother to take his duffel bag with him.

Of course Joan tailed the man nearly to the street. Lane watched through the open doorway in horrified dismay as she tore out into the yard and toward the bottom of the driveway, with a dirty slotted spoon still clutched in one hand and the scarf in her hair now looped awkwardly around her neck.

“Where the hell are you going? Roger, stop!”

He didn’t. The engine gunned to life, the twin beams of light from his Cadillac flooded the front window, quickly slid across the yard, and then disappeared.

Joan still threw the spoon toward the road with an enraged shriek as he drove away. It clattered against the asphalt with a metallic clang.

 

**

 

“Well, he has to face it sometime!” Joan exclaimed, more to the dark television set and the empty blue plush chair that faced her than to Lane, who sat slumped on the sofa, and watched her pace back and forth with wary eyes. “He can’t bottle his grief up forever; it isn’t healthy, for god’s sake!”

“No, but neither was that,” Lane pointed out.

Joan continued on as if she hadn’t heard him. “Not to mention, he _never_ talks about her, and they did everything together, even after the divorce. I mean, it’s absurd—my god, comical, even!” She spun around to face him. “Who the hell becomes best friends with an ex they cuckolded for an _infant?_ ”

Lane opened his mouth, but before he could get any words out, Joan was already pacing again, steamrolling over any potential reply.

“Plus, he pulled this exact same shit after his mother died, and after Bert died, and that _alone_ almost broke him, so don’t you dare try to tell me that I’m _overreacting_ , _Lane_ , because I’m not. Okay?”

“Joan, I _know_.” He met her eyes with a pleading look. “I do understand.”

She deflated visibly, and finally stopped pacing. Her voice was several octaves quieter when she spoke again. “I’m not a monster for bringing it up. The anniversary’s in three days.”

 _I’m worried,_ Lane subtituted mentally, and beckoned her over to the couch.

“Well, you—you’re trying to help,” he said, as she sat down next to him and twisted her hands in her lap in a way that meant she was terribly anxious. “And while your heart’s in the right place, we can’t force the man to admit what he isn’t prepared to accept.”

“It’s been a year. He can’t live in denial forever—” Joan began, but Lane cut her off with a pointed glare.

“No. Joan, the man lost his wife. He’s angry, and he’s sad, and shouting at him won’t help. All right? Now, if he’s going to talk to us about it, full stop, then that’s something he’s got to decide for himself. We can’t yank it out of him.”

She pressed her lips together into a thin line, and was quiet for a few moments.

“Well, I don’t know what else to do.”

Lane scratched at an itchy place under his jawline as he considered this. She wanted to take care of him. Was probably angry that Roger was refusing to be sensible and face this head-on. Or angry that he refused to open up to her.

“Come here.” He waved her toward his side of the sofa. “Give us a cuddle.”

With a sigh, she scooted closer and put her arms around his neck. Lane was surprised to feel how much she was trembling. It was as if she’d been locked out of the house on a frigid winter evening.

“Augh. You’re freezing.”

She shifted in his arms with a little huff.

“It’s all right to be worried,” he said after a moment, just as Joan spoke.

“I don’t know how to help him.” She didn’t lift her head; her breath tickled his neck. “If he doesn’t snap out of it, he’s going to go back to the drinking, and the whores, and one wrong acid trip would probably—” she expelled a harsh breath. “I can’t think about that. I can’t let him _do that._ ”

“Well, of course not,” Lane said calmly, although a similar thought had also crossed his mind. _If Roger self-destructs now, it might actually kill him, this time._ “But we can’t force him to be honest about his feelings if he doesn’t want to be. I mean, what’s your strategy otherwise? Lock him in a closet until he decides to confess?”

She let out an annoyed snort.

He smiled against her hair. “He loves you, my darling. I’m sure if you—just let him take it at his own pace, hm?”

“Lane,” Joan said after a moment. “He loves you, too.”

“Mm.” Lane wasn’t so certain, but he wanted to show that he’d heard this. “Plus he adores Kevin. And Ellery. That’s—think why he even went to therapy in the first place. He wanted to do better. He _can_ do better.”

“Then why doesn’t he just _try_?” she asked in a low voice.

“Give him time,” Lane kissed her forehead. “He’ll come back around.”

He hoped. God, he hoped. Lane honestly didn’t know what they would do if they lost him now. Not after everything that had happened.

 

**

           

When Roger pulled up to the curb, and stepped out of the car to glance over at the little yellow house, he had to put a hand up to his eyes to shield them from the sun. Jesus. This place looked like it belonged to some ancient piano teacher, not a middle-aged bachelor in a permanent mid-life crisis.

Roger slammed the door shut, and watched with satisfaction as the screen door creaked open, and a dark-haired man stepped out onto the porch.

“Hey, dickhead.” Roger called out with a wave. “Cute place you got here.”

Don just sighed. Orange light glinted off his aviators as he stared back at Roger. “That’s not my name.”

By the time the sun had dipped below the horizon, and the moon was up, they were halfway into a bottle of scotch, watching the neighborhood drag racers tow their cars to whatever little podunk dirt circle track would host ‘em.

“Did I tell you I slept with Joanie again?” Roger admitted sometime around the end of the bottle. “Cause that happened.”

Don let out a deep cough, wiped his mouth, and gave Roger a look that said he was a fucking dumbass. “You’ve seen Lane throw a punch.”

Roger just smirked, and took another big gulp, relishing the way it burned as it went down his throat. “Yeah, but I slept with him, too, so.”

There was a long, pointed silence. Don waited a couple of seconds to speak.

“What do you want me to say?”

“This guy,” Roger jerked a thumb toward the street. “Nobody around here wants you to run your yap. Trust me.”

“Shut up,” Don huffed, and they kept drinking.

 

**

 

After six days, and almost forty total messages left with the McCann Erickson service, plus a call from Caroline personally reassuring Joan that yes, Mr. Sterling was now back at work, and no, he hadn’t run off to California forever, Roger finally appeared on their doorstep.

“I’m just staying for dinner,” he muttered when Lane opened the door.

Clearly, they were bypassing the usual hellos, jokes, and greetings in exchange for the delightful brand of surliness Lane once received from Nigel and his teenaged friends.

“Right.” Lane turned, and left the door open behind him, so Roger could follow him down to the kitchen. “Well, it’s just chicken and veg tonight. Nothing special. Come along.”

If Joan was surprised when she saw Roger trailing in behind Lane, with a suspiciously quiet air and his hands jammed into his trouser pockets, she didn’t show it. All she did was get out a third plate from the top cabinet—and although she still flung a spoonful of mixed vegetables down onto it in a violent way, she didn’t say one bad word as she brought it over to the table and set it down in front of Roger’s usual place.

Dinner was hideously awkward; Joan was still very angry, clearly, because she and Roger didn’t say more than a dozen words to each other at a time, just stared down at their plates in silence and kept shooting aggravated yet pleading glances at Lane, as if he was supposed to side with both of them at once.

Oh, sod all of it. They were both stubborn as mules.

“Come to bed once you’ve settled in,” Lane told Roger the second Joan had left the table to begin clearing up. He’d take the plates to her in a minute.

Roger gave him a glare that said he’d rather walk over hot coals than have sex at the moment, but Lane met his scornful gaze head-on and continued, in a very determined voice.

“If you don’t want anything, that’s fine. Just stay. Even for a little while.”

“Oh yeah?” Roger huffed as he folded his arms across his chest. “Why?”

Lane didn’t allow himself to get drawn into whatever trap was waiting behind _that_ word. “Well, we—miss you. And we’d like to spend some time. So. Whenever you’re ready.”

Inside the kitchen, Joan was scrubbing down one particular part of the counter so violently Lane was sure she was about to crack the granite in two.

Roger didn’t say anything else.

Without another word, Lane got up, collected the plates, and put them into the sink before leaving the kitchen altogether, leaving Roger behind to make his decision.

“This is stupid,” Joan hissed a few minutes later as they went into their room to change into pajamas, shutting the bedroom door for a couple of minutes in order to give Roger some privacy. “Just tell him he’s being an idiot.”

“No,” Lane told her, brightly, and punctured this refusal with a kiss. “Be patient, dearest.”

“Excuse me? I can _be_ patient.”

Lane didn’t even try to hide his overdramatic eyeroll, which was probably why Joan promptly tossed her crumpled day dress towards his head, and nearly knocked his glasses off his face.

 

**

 

Over an hour later, Lane lay on top of the blankets, paging through a thin volume on the Russo-Japanese War that was once owned by Mr. Cooper. To his left, Joan sat propped up against the headboard with a legal pad balanced on her lap and a cigarette burning idly in the ashtray, scribbling for several seconds and then flipping back through previous pages as she worked.

Finally, soft footsteps creaked down the carpeted hall and stopped just beyond their bedroom doorway.

“Hey,” Roger said in a flat voice.

“’Lo,” Lane answered, without looking up. “Get your kit off, then.”

Next to him, Joan tensed visibly, but Lane just tried to appear as casual as possible, flipping to the next page of his book as Roger knelt down and untied the laces on his wingtips, then toed out of his shoes.

After a second, Joan glanced back down at her legal pad. For a few minutes, all they could hear was the background noises of Roger getting undressed: the dull clink of metal bits hitting carpet as he flung his braces and garters onto the ground, the telltale rustle of fabric as he pulled off his waistcoat and collared shirt.

He didn’t take off anything else, just walked over to the foot of the bed and carefully, quietly, crawled up between them on the mattress before turning over onto his back with a sigh, as cautious as a naughty puppy who knew he’d done wrong and was trying to get back into the household’s good graces.

Lane pretended to flip to the next page in his book, although he couldn’t remember a damn thing from the beginning of the chapter. All he did was adjust his grip on the middle of the spine, with one thumb pressing down into the open crease between the pages as his left hand searched out Roger’s. Suddenly, he felt rough, calloused fingers next to his, and brushed two fingertips gently against the back of Roger’s palm, questioning, searching. _Is this all right?_

Roger made a low, tremulous noise in the back of his throat.

Lane’s stomach tightened, but he inhaled a small breath, and forced himself to keep the heavy book upright, keep pretending to read. Don’t press him.

The soft whisper of a pen nib scratching legal paper had stopped, as well, and made the silence seem thick and oppressive instead of comforting.

“Mona had a coronary,” Roger said slowly. He sounded as if he were clenching his jaw, each word forced and strained. Lane couldn’t look at him yet. “And she—she died.” His voice caught. “And I should’ve been there—”

A harsh, loud sob burst out of him; Lane glanced over just as Roger clapped one hand across his mouth. Two tears dropped from the corners of his squeezed-shut eyes as he let out a muffled howl, shuddering with pent-up emotion.

“I—I should’ve—”

“Shhhh. It’s all right. Here we are.”

Lane pushed his book aside, and quickly gathered Roger into his arms, rocking him back and forth like one might comfort a terrified child. Joan reacted equally quickly. She tossed her legal pad and ballpoint pen straight into the floor, and put her glasses onto the end table so she could lie down on Roger’s other side. After scooting closer, she pressed her body against his back with a distinct sniff as she rested one tentative hand on his waist.

Curled into Lane’s chest, Roger snorted and sobbed incoherent noises into Lane’s shirtfront, his entire body taut and shivering as he wet the blue cotton with snot and saliva and tears.

“We had all th—the s-same—fuck, even after I—”

“Honey, she didn’t die because of you.” Joan whispered in a reedy voice. She sounded as if she was fighting back tears of her own. “It isn’t your fault.”

Although Lane couldn’t catch her eye from this position, he nodded in affirmation, and tried to sound more confident than he felt.

“Of course not. How could you have known?”

“Y—you don’t—” Roger gave a thick sniff; choked out the next few words with several heaving gulps. “We weren’t even with’er when sh—she died, and I—”

He let out a whimper.

Joan made a pained noise. “Oh, sweetheart.”

Tears pricked Lane’s eyes as he traced one hand across Roger’s back. Here, at last, was the truth. Mona had died alone. Just like Cooper. Probably just like the dowager Mrs. Sterling, as well. With a sudden jolt of awareness, Lane realized this must be Roger’s worst nightmare. Having no one there to love or reassure you at the very end, when you needed it most.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered aloud.

“’An’ I was such a shitty husband. I put her th—through all that fu— _huh_ —”

“Roger, don’t,” Joan murmured into the back of Roger’s t-shirt as another round of sobs overcame him. Her voice broke. “Mona didn’t hold that grudge. She was so, so good.”

“And she loved you,” Lane said in a fierce whisper, closing his eyes. He had a sudden flash of a decades-younger Becca, sitting in bed in a sterile-white maternity ward, pale and shell-shocked, rocking the tiny, squirming bundle that was Nigel, only a few hours old. It made his throat tighten with emotion. “She loved you so much she gave you a—a lovely little girl. And helped raise a beautiful grandson.”

Roger cried even harder at the mention of Margaret and Ellery, sucked in breath after shuddering breath, and for the next few minutes, he was utterly inconsolable. Lane and Joan just kept whispering to him, kept petting him, trying to ride out the storm. By the time his cries subsided into loud sniffs and snorts, Lane was murmuring a low litany of soft words into Roger’s sweaty temple — _shhh, there now, darling, we’ve got you, love_ — and Joan was kissing and caressing every part of Roger’s neck and shoulders that she could reach, occasionally bumping against one or both of Lane’s hands.

“Sorry,” Roger finally gasped, and scrabbled upright without warning, swiping at his wet, red cheeks with one clumsy palm. “Sorry. ‘M so goddamn s-stupid.”

“Roger, it’s okay,” Joan said with a sniff; Lane was so overcome that he couldn’t say a word, for fear of losing his own composure. “It’s really okay.”

When Lane looked closer, he noticed the hard outline of Roger’s cock was visible through his trousers.

Joan put a hand against Roger’s zipper before anyone could hesitate; Roger sucked in a wet breath as Joan tugged him back down to the bed and began to stroke him. From this angle, Lane could still see tiny drops of saltwater clinging to the base of Roger’s eyelashes.

Lane couldn’t get hard, so he just pulled Roger flush against his chest and held him in his arms, rubbing one palm over Roger’s well-defined chest and stomach as Joan got him off with one deft hand. She snuck her fingers inside Roger’s fly and tugged him to the brink so sweetly Roger got a little weepy again when he came.

In the end, the climax wasn’t anything earth-shattering, just enough to make him relax—enough to soothe everyone’s frayed nerves. And when it was over, and a less awful silence had settled over the bed, Roger nuzzled back into Lane’s chest with a rough groan as Joan plucked a few Kleenexes from the box on the nightstand.

He brought one of Lane’s hands up to his mouth, kissing across Lane’s palm several times, and then holding his hand in place for several seconds before he let it go. And then he looked at Joan. She’d already put the first dirty tissue on the table, and had just finished wiping off her hands with the second, which she tossed aside.

Roger reached out for her. She grasped his fingers, leaned in, and captured his mouth in a gentle kiss.

“You know we love you,” Joan squeezed Roger’s wrist as she pulled back and met Lane’s gaze, her eyes sparkling in the low light as she reached out to rub Lane’s right shoulder with her free hand. “So much.”

“Joanie—”

“’S true,” Lane murmured.

And that was that. Roger didn’t say anything else.

Outside, rain pattered against the roof in loud, intermittent gusts. They all lay down again, with Lane on his side on the right hand part of the bed, Joan on the left, stretched out on her back, and Roger between them, sort of lying on his stomach. He had his face pillowed on Joan’s bosom, while Lane was curled against Roger’s back, nestled into the man’s shoulder.

“Jesus.” Roger sighed out a long breath after several calm, peaceful minutes of listening to water driving hard against the roof. “Really coming down out there.”

“Mm hm.” Joan was carding her fingers through his hair; her voice was low and drowsy. “You wanna talk or sleep?”

“Sleep.”

Roger sat up with a grunt, and quickly shucked off his trousers. Lane took the opportunity to pull his own pajama top over his head and tossed it on the floor before he shoved back his half of the blankets. On the other side of the bed, Joan just sat up, kicked off her pajama bottoms, and left it at that before turning down the covers and switching off the light.

They crawled under the blankets and got back into their respective positions. And perhaps Lane imagined it, or perhaps he didn’t, but as he was drifting off, nestled comfortably against Roger’s right side, he could have sworn he felt the gentle brush of big, warm fingers against his brow, and heard a low, rough whisper.

“Goodnight, sweetheart.”

Three days later, they went to the cemetery and placed a wreath of white flowers to mark the occasion. Lane and Joan stood off to one side, solemn and stoic among the grand columns and stones as Roger took a few minutes alone in front of the marble angel to gather his thoughts. By the time they walked over to join him, Lane pretended not to notice that Roger kept clearing his throat and was still clutching his handkerchief in one hand; all he did was touch the small of Roger’s back, very lightly. Joan just kissed Roger’s cheek and threaded her left arm through his right one as Lane stepped forward.

“Hello, my dear,” Lane said warmly as he crouched down and placed a single stem on the ground in front of the wreath. They’d also brought three red roses to lay here, because those were the first flowers Roger had ever bought her. “Beautiful day today, so we thought we’d all come over and see you.” A sudden, alarming thought struck him as he spoke. “Only I—I don’t know if you and I’ve ever met, until now.”

He turned and cast a puzzled look back at Joan. “Did we?”

She was shaking her head from side to side, her mouth twitching, clearly torn between amusement and horror as she clutched Roger’s elbow.

“Honey, I have no idea.”

Lane looked at Roger, who just shrugged, and seemed baffled.

“Well.” Lane turned back to the stone before they both saw him grimace, while he attempted to recover from this hideous faux pas. “Erm. I’ve—certainly heard enough about you to feel as if we know each other very well. So—so that ought to count for something, I think.”

Roger cleared his throat. “Don’t beat around the bush. She hates that.”

“Ah.” Lane patted the top of the stone, and got to his feet with a grunt before stepping backwards. “Well—nice to see you again, dear. Sleep well. Erm. Joan?”

“Okay.” Smoothly, Joan stepped forward and placed a rose of her own beside Lane’s, flicking a piece of grit away from one corner as she spoke. “Hi, Mona. You have a lovely place. Although if I told you about the last three months, you’d probably start spinning in your coffin.”

Lane tried his best, but he couldn’t hold back one undignified snort.

“Jesus Christ,” Roger muttered under his breath. When Lane glanced over, a very wan smile had formed on the other man’s face.

 

**

 

On a grassy plain in front of the big tent in the center of camp, several big crowds of kids buzzed around like a hive of swarming bees as counselors shepherded them over to their respective parents and siblings.

“Hey, Justin! Come over here!” Kevin had already come sprinting over once, just to hug them all. He’d dropped his backpack and suitcase onto the ground before he’d immediately run away again to find his friends. After another minute, he’d come back dragging a rakish, longhaired boy by the hand; Joan watched the two friends sling their arms around each other and couldn’t help grinning. “This is my stepdad and my uncle. Although he’s not really my uncle, Mom just calls him that. And that’s Mom, right there. Hi, Mom!”

Joan waved back. “Hi, sweetie.”

“That’s so cool,” Justin pronounced. “I just have a mom and dad. They’re really boring.”

“All right, enough chit chat. You kids ever find those lake sharks?” Roger interrupted with a wink.

“No! Those _aren’t even real,_ ” Kevin said loudly. “You’re just making up stories. My counselor told me.”

Lane snickered loudly. “Far as we know, anyway.”

 _“Lane!_ They really aren’t _real!”_

Joan hid a laugh behind one hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, as a whole, this story was a lot longer and more bittersweet than I thought it would be at first. Hope it wasn't too schmaltzy; y'all know I enjoy my hurt/comfort tropes way too much to keep them out of this fic.
> 
> Title comes from [Nat King Cole's classic "Mona Lisa."](https://open.spotify.com/track/3ijsbl1KxhEQHeRg8NnWYC)


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